President Obama’s proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts along with unemployment benefits, child tax credits, business tax cuts and the Making Work Pay credit seemed to have made investors relatively optimistic today, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average remained above last night’s close of 11,362.19 almost all day.
The Federal Reserve issued its October 2010 Consumer Credit report today (see the report here). The report notes that revolving credit declined again in October, this time by 8 ½ percent, just under the 8 ¾ decline for September. Nonrevolving credit increased by 6 ¾ percent. While this is good news in a personal finance sense, it can mean decreased profits for credit card issuers. It will be interesting to see if revolving credit use can continue to decline now that the holiday season is here.
By the end of the day, there was still enough insecurity to drag the market down and the Dow fell 3.03 points to 11,359.16 while the Nasdaq gained 3.57 points to 2,598.49. The S&P 500 rose .63 points to 1,223.75.
European markets were up on Tuesday with France’s CAC 40 rising 1.63 percent. Asian markets were mixed.
Stocks in the news: Nicor Inc (NYSE: GAS), AGL Resources Inc (NYSE: AGL), 3M Co (NYSE: MMM).
