S&P 500 finishes at five-year high on economic data`

[No Elephants]

S&P 500 finishes at five-year high on economic data

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK | Sat Jan 5, 2013 10:30am EST

(Reuters) - The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index ended at a five-year high on Friday, lifted by reports showing employers kept up a steady pace of hiring workers and the vast services sector expanded at a brisk rate.

The gains on the S&P 500 pushed the index to its highest close since December 2007 and its biggest weekly gain since December 2011.

Most of the gains came early in the holiday-shortened week, including the largest one-day rise for the index in more than a year on Wednesday after politicians struck a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff."

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI gained 43.85 points, or 0.33 percent, to 13,435.21. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX rose 7.10 points, or 0.49 percent, to 1,466.47. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC edged up 1.09 points, or 0.04 percent, to 3,101.66.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/05/us-markets-stocks-idUSBRE8BG0D620130105

Five year high? What happened to "uncertainty over the fiscal cliff is terrible for financial markets?

Every time I think I am becoming too cynical, something like this reminds me that I am way too gullible and naive. Maybe there is no such thing as "too cynical" anymore.

[Enthusiast]

1. You said it!

"Every time I think I am becoming too cynical, something like this reminds me that I am way too gullible and naive. Maybe there is no such thing as "too cynical" anymore."

The same thing occurred to me. Are we creating reality with our minds?

[No Elephants]

2. well, the drum beating very quickly resumed, didn't it?

Maybe we are supposed to live in constant fear of falling over the next fiscal cliff?

Like folks in the novel 1984 lived in constant fear of the next attack from Eastasia?