Good Start to Earnings Season

We are just a few days into the second quarter earnings reports, and so far they have been good.  We have seen better than expected announcements from bellwethers such as Alcoa and Johnson & Johnson, while Goldman Sachs and Intel reported blow-out earnings.   On top of that, the Fed raised its economic forecast for the rest of the year and for 2009, something that hasn’t happened for a while.

All these news drove the market considerably higher today.  The bulk of earnings reports is still ahead, but so far it appears that the recovery is still on track and that the probability of a market consolidation is declining.