Hurricane Earl Leaves Off

Hurricane Earl was moving Northeast at 23 mph tonight,not impressing many people very much.It's really little more than a few inches of rain and some gales-at worst.Unfortunately,a number of other tropical systems are forming off West Africa,so the next few weeks could be replete with worries for the East and Gulf coasts.The Labor Day weekend is proceeding pretty normally,although Amtrak train service was cancelled between New York and Boston and the White Sox/Red Sox baseball matchup was canceled in Boston.
The second leg of the PGA Tour Playoffs,the Deutcshe Bank Championship,began in Norton,Massachusetts as scheduled,though Hurricane Earl poured on the afternoon starters.Australian Jason Day and American Zach Johnson shared the first round lead,shooting -8 63s.Eight players were tied for second at -7 64.Tiger Woods was well back with his +1 72.Phil Mickelson did slightly better with his two under par.
The market was substantially up this week,with the Dow gaining 2.9,the S&P 3.8 and the NASDAQ 3.7%.There will be little economic data next week for the market to react to,but a lot of traders will be back from vacation,perhaps lending more volume to any reactions to developments that may occur in mergers and acquisitions,politics or other news.Stock futures continued the optimism this evening,all rising between one and two percent.Bond futures also gained.