Universally, stock markets performed strongly on the back of better than expected retail data from the US as well as optimism over corporate earnings and the EU’s coordinated effort to support the ailing banks in the region.
All major indices in the US rallied last week on strong retail sales and encouraging earnings from Google. For the third week running the Dow gained putting it back in positive territory for the year. The Dow moved up 4.9%, the S&P 500 eased up 6% and the Nasdaq gained 7.6% for the week. The Thanksgiving shortened week in Canada didn’t stop the markets to finish strongly on positive retail data from the US and better than expected manufacturing data from Canada. Elsewhere, markets in Asia and Europe moved up this week on optimism that the European leaders are taking coordinated actions to resolve their banking crisis.
Optimism in equity markets was passed on to commodities with almost all major commodities up for the week. Crude oil rallied to finish another week with strong performance on positive retail sales, which might spur back the demand for oil. Crude eased up 4.6% for the week. Gold and other precious metals also rallied this week on the same US retail news, gold added 2.9% over this week to finish the week at $1683.00 and Silver added 3.8% and finished at $32.17 an ounce. We are happy that the volatility we saw in last few months has subdued this week and the market is trading more rationally. We also believe the gold is seeking support around $1600 -$1700 level which is good for gold prices for the long run.
This week most gold miners performed very well given that they are lagging the performance of the yellow metal for the year and are now catching up to it. The best and worst performing TSXV gold juniors for the week can be seen here: http://www.smallcappower.com/Junior_Gold_Gainer_Loser.aspx.