The oracles suggested the market might not do so well today, you know, with the Fed telling us whatever they told us yesterday. 

  • U.S. stock index futures were trading lower on Thursday and the dollar fell against a basket of currencies.

Even though stock-index futures missed the call, the US Dollar did not. It is lower by a bunch today, and maybe the reason for that is …

  • Unemployment claims have now been below 300,000, a threshold associated with healthy labor market conditions, for 54 weeks, the longest stretch since 1973.

It’s hard to bet against an economy that has that kind of underlying strength. It is simple – if people have jobs, people buy things. If people buy things, companies then make more things. Making and selling more things creates jobs and it makes companies money. The market likes companies to make money. 

The other good news today is that the current US trading deficit dropped a bit, along with the US dollar. Now, this is doubly good news in that a strong US dollar is not so good for trading with other countries. It makes things companies make more expensive overseas, which is a big reason the US trading deficit has grown so large.

  • The dollar gained 20 percent versus the currencies of the United States’ main trading partners between June 2014 and December 2015.

Today, the market is up for the right reasons. Oh! Coincidentally, so is oil. So far, my thinking oil prices would gradually trend downward through next week does not look, well, accurate. Did the enormous glut go away?