A Look at Thursday’s Market Activity:  The overall market was slightly lower on Thursday despite an early move higher than faded when weak housing numbers were released.  Oil was higher by $0.30 to $99.70 per barrel, and Gold was higher by $26.60 to $1,726.70 per ounce.  Wheat was higher by $0.122 to $6.534 per bushel, and Corn was unchanged at $6.344 per bushel, while Soybeans were higher by $0.092 at $12.226 per bushel.

A Few Thoughts on Friday’s Market:  The overall market is rather dull right now; something I find rather interesting considering the Fed’s recent announcement of prolonged ultra-low interest rates and what I consider to be rather good corporate earnings announcements.  I take this to be a sign that investors are not really to enthused about the prospects for the world economy for 2012.  While it is tempting to call for a market pullback,  there is an old saying about never short a dull market.  While my 1st Rule of Trends is that a trend remains in place until it is broken; my 2nd Rule of Trends is that the longer a  trend is in place, the greater the chance it will be broken.

The current upward movement in the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been going on for about 6 weeks.  My “guess” this morning is that it is not going to continue for much longer without some form of a pullback.  I am going to take a good look at the charts over the weekend and see if I can figure out when we might see that happen.

The Bottom Line: GDP is out shortly. This might be interesting.  Enjoy the weekend.