Wall Street ignored the terrorist carnage that happen down the lane Monday to close higher. While the indices traded off slightly, the markets had about an hour to digest the information and did not experience any sharp sell off.
I believe this shows less the resiliency of the market, but shows the coldness of the trading algorithms. The terrorism connection in the news came out after the market close, so for a black boxes scanning the headlines they only picked up data on a horrendous car accident in NYC.
Even Home Depot shares only traded off about 30 cents after it was reported that one of its trucks was used in the attack. Now I’m not saying Home Depot shares should be punished, however this shows some big advances of the trading algorithms when compared to the airline stocks getting slammed after 9-11.
This morning’s Dow futures is up 130 points as Yellen & Co. are thought to announce no rate hike this afternoon, which dilutes the terrorism reaction in the markets.
Bitcoin moved above $6,600 earlier this morning. This represents a roughly $2,400 move in October. The big move up in the last two days comes on the news that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange announced plans to launch bitcoin futures contracts later this year.
