WEEKEND WRAP: If You Like Your Bull Market, You Can Keep Your Bull Market

Taking a page from the Obama playbook, we open the first full trading week of the New Year with a promise, which may or may not be kept.

For the week that straddled the New Year holiday, all but the NASDAQ finished in the red, despite the best efforts from a furious rally on the first day of trading in 2020. In hindsight, Thursday's rally might have just been cover for what lay ahead on Friday and what could turn out to be a quite tumultuous month of trading in January. On that same note, the final two trading days of 2019 - Monday and Tuesday of last week - weren't so hot either.

Since it's far too early to tell where this all is going, especially considering the double-edged political sword that is impeachment and Iran, let's leave it at that and move forward, noting exactly where stocks, bonds, oil, and precious metals finished up 2019. Because nobody in their right mind buys and sells anything on a year-end basis, it will be instructive to keep benchmarks in mind, so they've been provided at the conclusion of this post.

At the Close, Friday, January 3, 2020:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 28,634.88, -233.92 (-0.81%)
NASDAQ: 9,020.77, -71.42 (-0.79%)
S&P 500: 3,234.85, -23.00 (-0.71%)
NYSE Composite: 13,917.05, -85.45 (-0.61%)

For the Week:
Dow: -10.38 (-0.04%)
NASDAQ: +14.15 (+0.16%)
S&P 500: -5.17 (-0.16%)
NYSE Composite: -27.10 (-0.19%)


Benchmarks:
Dow: ended 2018 at 23,327.46; ended 2019 at 28,538.44; 22.34% gain
NASDAQ: ended 2018 at 6,635.28; ended 2019 at 8,972.60; 35.25% gain
S&P 500: ended 2018 at 2,506.85; ended 2019 at 3,230.78; 28.88% gain
NYSE Composite: ended 2018 at 11,374.39; ended 2019 at 13,913.03; 22.32% gain

10-year US Treasury note: Dec. 31, 2018: 2.69%; Dec. 31, 2019: 1.92%

30-year US Treasury note: Dec. 31, 2018: 3.02%; Dec. 31, 2019: 2.39%

Gold posted a gain of 18.43%, rising from 1279.00 to 1514.75 over the course of 2019.
Silver went from 15.47 to 18.05 through the year for a profit of 16.68%.
WTI Crude Oil rose from 47.09 on January 3, 2019, to 61.68 on December 30, up 30.99%.