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Whether you call it lucky or not is up to you, but the bulls had a good week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which started the week at 13,409, finished the week up just over 200 points (a 1.5% gain). The week was filled with mostly good news as investors were delighted in a lower than expected decline in factory orders as reported on Monday. Trading took a backseat to fireworks and cookouts on Wednesday for the 4th of July holiday in the U.S. Then, the week ended on another good note with the unemployment rate meeting the 4.5% expected rate and the nonfarm payrolls being surprisingly slightly higher.

While all of this is a little more cause for cheer rather than alarm, it does not signal any dramatic or unexpected changes. The markets were trading a much lighter volume as investors were much busier spending time attending family reunions to boast about their first half of the year investment results it seems.

Regardless what the unemployment rate does in the short term, it is nice to end the week with a positive comment… so I just wanted to note that the 4.5% unemployment rate is quite low and is an excellent sign that the economy is still doing quite well overall. There are several economic indicators being reported next week, in fact it seems like we have something coming out every day next week… some are more important than others as usual. For instance, retail sales data for the month of June will be released by the Department of Commerce on July 13th (considered to be an important economic indicator). Not as important… the treasury budget announced by the US Treasury Department on the 12th. We will revisit these items when we look at the week ahead.

Here’s looking forward to The Week Ahead… both literally and in the ongoing blog that will be updated later this weekend. Till then, enjoy your weekend! As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback…