Early this week U.S. stocks had their worst one-day decline since November 23rd 2011. However data showing stronger than forecast growth in payrolls last month helped advance the S&P 500 to a fourth weekly gain; the S&P 500 is up 9 percent overall for 2012. The boost in payrolls has capped the best six-month streak of job growth since 2006 while the jobless rate remains at 8.3 percent. The Financial sector contributed to most of the rise in the S&P 500 after Greece’s creditors agreed to a debt swap as the country convinced many private investors to forgive more than 100 billion euros of debt. Along with concerns over Europe, uncertainty remains over tensions in the Middle-East and the fallout from sanctions against Iran, and the effects such sanctions will have on the price of oil during an election year in the United States. With the price of gasoline tipping $4 a gallon, Carl Riccadonna, a senior U.S. economist at Deutsche bank Securities Inc. in New York, stated in an interview with Bloomberg that “the threshold to withstand the run-up in energy prices is higher than most people think…..we can tolerate fuel at 44. Job growth is stronger and incomes are looking very decent. The economy is on firmer footing”. Many analysts expect the U.S. economy to continue to grow as today marks the three year anniversary of the bull markets in U.S. stocks that followed the global financial crisis, according to Bloomberg.

 – Charles Stack