Financials Fueled By…

Financials moved higher across the
board as the index of leading economic indicators was up .5 to 109.7 in
November, which was better than expected. The 30-Year T-Bond
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gained 0^30. The 10-Year T-Note
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followed suit tacking on
0-180 and the
5-Year T-Note

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moved up 0-080 in today’s trading session.

A more important factor for the bounce
was the President’s announcement that Congress has reached a compromise on the
stimulus package — which was later found not to be true according to Senator
Daschle. The repercussions of this statement caused the broader markets to diverge
late in the afternoon.

Grains fared pretty well as there was
talk of
freezing weather heading for the wheat fields in China. Wheat
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tacked on 7-2 based on the news, to close at 289-0. Corn
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also moved up
0-2. Oats
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closed lower at 186-2, off 5-2, and Soybeans
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climbed 3-0 to close at 435-0.

Meats were down across the board, with

Live Cattle

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closing at 68.97, down .58. Lean Hogs
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slid
.67, and Pork bellies
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led the downward move, closing off by 1.45.

Feeder Cattle

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lost .15.

The broader market index futures
closed mixed on Wednesday. The S&P 500 futures
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closed higher by
7.50 points. The Dow Industrial futures
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tacked on 68 points, while
the Nasdaq 100
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shed 32.00 points.

The greenback was the only currency
trading higher in the session Wednesday, as the US Dollar Index
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moved up another .40. The British Pound
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fell .0064, and the Japanese
Yen

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slid .0019. Also losing ground was the Swiss Franc
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,
which closed at .6103, down .0017, and the Australian Dollar
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, which
fell .0044.

Precious metals got hit today, with
Gold

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falling 4.9 to close at 276.0. Silver futures
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fell
off the shelf, down 11.2 at 430.8, and High Grade Copper
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,
which was up yesterday, slid 1.05 due to the Housing Starts numbers. Platinum
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was off by 4.5.

Softs ended the session mixed, with
Cotton #2

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closing at 36.45, down .36. Orange Juice
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moved
higher .25, as well as Coffee
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, which climbed .80 to close at
46.90.
Cocoa

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lost 16, and Lumber futures
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slid 6.40 after getting
a boost yesterday from the Housing Starts numbers.

Among the energies, Crude Oil
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moved higher .20. Unleaded Gasoline
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tacked on
.0077,
while Heating Oil
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gained .0144. Losing ground was Natural Gas
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, which fell .041 to close at 2.616.