Evening Friday, July 1. Will the Dow run up to 13,000 now? I don't know. It seems like there is still A LOT OF basically bad economic things happening: unemployment above 9% is too high to sustain a stock market recovery. Housing is still trying to get on its feet. DE-LEVERAGING. That's the fundamental thing that's driving the 2009-2011 recession: everyone got overextended, prices ran up too high and then crashed. Banks are enforcing the 20% down payment and 40% of income run on home loans: it is protecting the market and stabilizing it, but everyone is chomping at the bit to run it back up again: we are greedy for quick gains! The Dow could run up towards 13,000, but I am thinking the news runs in spurts. Now we are due for some bad news again.

“Investors focused on the U.S. data, even as the latest overseas data was sobering.” I said last week: What do we really care about Greece after all? It’s just not a central issue. I don’t care if they look at it. I think it’s overblown.