Don't you love it! Well, the "2 Minute Drill" has begun (see December 29th post). The Dow, S&P, and the Nasdaq kicked off the New Year with a bang after the Federal Reserve signaled that they may be close to the end its of rate hikes. In the minutes of the Fed's December meeting they said the number of rate increases left is "probably not large".

Oddly, among the best performers for the day were Energy stocks as oil jumped more than $2 per barrel to a two-month high of $63.14. Gold stocks also leaped higher as investors felt that the Fed was not serious about tackling the underlying inflation problem. At the close, the price of gold rose 2.6%, its biggest gain since May of 2003.

Shares of Wal-Mart (WMT) continued to decline after the company said that its December sales came in at the low end of estimates. Needless to say, we are happy that we unloaded WMT on December 15th above $49, and Best Buy (BBY), above $50.