每日市場點評 --- January 9, 2008

The market had a late day reversal and all three major indices closed the day higher by more than 1%. There are several rumours cited as the trigger for the final 90 minutes reversal that pushed Dow up by more than 200 points from its bottom. One is that the Fed Chairman Bernanke may announce an intra-day interest rate cut before he speaks tomorrow. Another is Warren Buffett is going to bail out several troubled bond insurers. However, as always, I don’t put much credit to such rumours. For now, I would rather view today’s action as an oversold and short-cover rally. In fact, more than 1000 stocks hitting new 52 week low before this afternoon’s rally. We will get more confirmation tomorrow. Oil price dropped following a rather bullish oil inventory report. Gold, on the other hand, changed little despite a broad increase in US dollar. It seems that the recent surge in the gold price has more to do with fund flows than a weak US dollar. For example, China just started its gold futures trading yesterday and the front-month contract was opened at limit up before closing the day up by more than 5%. Tomorrow we are going to get speech from the Fed Chairman Bernanke and also several chain retailers are going to report their December same-store sales results. Across the Atlantic Ocean, the Bank of England will meet tomorrow to determine its key interest rate and the market now is expecting more than 50 chance of a rate cut.