eagle bird hawk
El coleccionista de instantes / Flickr
Despite ongoing chaos in the world's financial capital, US financial markets had a good day.
Here's the scoreboard
Dow: 13,232, +136 pts, +1.0%


NASDAQ: 3,020, + 42 pts, +1.4%


S&P 500: 1,427, +15 pts, 1.0%


And the news:


Essentially, today was all about the data, and most of it was good.


Overnight, PMI reports from China and a trade report from Korea confirmed the notion that there are some "green shoots" budding in Asia, a meme that's been spreading for several weeks now.


Data was scarce in Europe, although there were negative headlines in Greece that caused the Athens market to tank (it's hard a horrible week).


In the US, it was almost all good news.

  • ADP beat expectations.

  • Initial claims fell.

  • US ISM came in above 50 again.

  • US PMI came in at 51.0.

  • Construction spending rose.

  • Consumer confidence hit a new high.

  • Car sales were wek, but Sandy hit the end of October.

And that's about it market-wise.
The other big story, the election, didn't move much. Obama is seen as having had a couple of good days as he deals with Hurricane Sandy.