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Black Friday was a good day for stocks.
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 13,009, +172.7, +1.3 percent

S&P 500: 1,409, +18.1, +1.3 percent

NASDAQ: 2,966, +40.3, +1.3 percent

And now the top stories:


  • Markets closed at 1:00 PM  after the Thanksgiving Day holiday.  And traders and investors caught up with the rest of the world by buying stocks.

  • The HSBC Flash China manufacturing PMI number finally bounced back above 50 for the first time in months.  Specifically, it hit a 13-month high of 50.4.  Any number above 50 signals expansion in the industry.  China is the world's second largest economy, and the fact that it's accelerating again is bullish for everyone.

  • The eurozone also released it's Flash PMI numbers, and the good news was that it was not a disaster.

  • Germany's Ifo business climate index unexpectedly jumped to 101.4 from 100 in October.  Economists were looking for a decline.  It was only a few weeks ago that ECB president Mario Draghi said he was concerned that the crisis in the euro's periphery countries were seeping into Germany, Europe's largest economy.

  • The U.S. was quiet.  There was no major economic data to report.  And many traders were off, continuing their Thanksgiving holidays.

  • Gold surged today.  "Gold rallied on the backdrop of a weaker dollar and money moving into a broad range of risk assets," said futures trader John Netto.  "The move higher in gold was also aided when it broke through a key technical resistance level and triggered a wave of buying."