Saturday, April 4, 2026 
Market Rap 05.October.2009
The stock market showed strength Monday as we began the first full trading week of October. The S&P 500 closed +1.49% or +15.25 points at 1040.46. There were 5 advancers for every decliner on the NYSE. The Nasdaq Composite closed at 2068.15 or +.98% with 2.7 advancers for every decliner.
Oil showed weakness at the open of the pit session on the NYMEX at 9AM EST. After initially trading lower, it found support at the lows from Friday. It then showed strength for the remainder of the session and closed at $70.41–just below the high of Friday–off a low of $68.05. Light Sweet Crude Oil - Pit Session USO - Daily Chart Gold Futures - Daily
On Wednesday September 30th, Crude Oil and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) rallied strongly. Since that time, any attempt to take oil lower has been met with buyers. If a meaningful correction is in the cards in the S&P 500, the dollar needs to strengthen. The recent strength in oil has been due to dollar weakness. If oil is strong, the dollar is not. As the dollar weakens, stocks inflate. Oil is the key to the equity puzzle into the end of the year. For that reason, X is traveling around to oil rich nations and meeting with business leaders. Any data he gathers will be important to my year end positioning.
Gold closed higher by 1.5% in what smelled like a rally that was due to more than just softness in the greenback.
I continue to see a deflationary–as opposed to inflationary–macroeconomic landscape and I am positioned accordingly.
Tomorrow is the William Blair Emerging Growth Stock Conference, ICSC/UBSW Chain Store Sales are due out at 7:45 EST–last 0.1%, Redbook Retail Sales at 8:55–last -2.3%.
After the bell this evening Mosaic (MOS) announced Q1 $0.23 versus $0.35 expected, revenues $1.50 billion versus $1.54 billion expected. Margins were 37% versus 52% year/year.
Research In Motion was notably weak today. After the bell we found out why: Bernstein initiated (RIMM) with an underperform rating and a $60 price target.
And the beat goes on.
