The DOW is down 35 points at posting to 12,413 while oil is trading at $102+ per barrel and Gold is trading at $1659 per ounce. Oil has been $2 or $3 either side of $100 per barrel for the past several weeks. Not that long ago gold was over $2,000 an ounce with predictions of $2,500 an ounce.

The Eurozone continues to have economic issues. Some folks there are now predicting a new recession in at least a couple countries. Individually each country may be small compared to a global scale, but taken as a whole, it will certainly have an impact.

In the US, initial jobless claims were reported worse than expectations at 399,000 for the week of 1/7/12. The forecast was for 375,000 claims. Retail sales were expected to increase by 0.4% in December and the report was that retail sales only rose 0.1% in December.

If you aren’t following us on FaceBook, please do. The Like button is located below and we do hope you will follow us. Let’s go!