Fewer Americans applying for jobless benefits. Better than expected earnings. Rising stocks. Do we need anything else to prove that the recession has come to a close? or has it?

Despite better than expected earnings reports for the first quarter, Blue chips still have to prove that they can perform well in emerging markets. This will only be seen with the earnings reports for the second quarter which our traders are eagerly looking forward to seeing.

While rising stocks seem to be mainly within the technology, energy, materials and industrial sectors, can this rally continue into next week? If so, which stocks are most interesting to you for Q2, Q3 and even Q4 of 2011?

According to Timothy Geithner in an interview with CNBC, the economy is in a better position for growth now with efforts being made to cut back the US deficits. “The president recognizes and the leadership and the Congress recognizes that we have to bring these deficits down.” The government is positive about the recovery efforts, are you?

While the rally in the stock market is great for our traders on UpDown.com, so is the news that unemployment has decreased in over two-thirds of the states. In fact,  applications for jobless benefits decreased which, when added to the fact that the consumer feels more confident than ever (according to the Consumer Index), we seem to be heading for a great week ahead for the markets.

So, as a consumer, what did you buy this holiday weekend? As a trader on the UpDown.com network, what are you looking forward to next week? Let us know via a tweet on twitter, or a comment on facebook or simply emailing us at: contact [at] updown [dot] com. Good luck!

-The UpDown Team

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 24th, 2011 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.