12,000 = 60:

Dow hits 6-year high; eBay sinks Nasdaq (ELLEN SIMON, 11/21/06, Chicago Sun-Times)

The Dow rose 64.12, or 0.6 percent, to 11,342.89. That was the blue chip index's best close since it settled at 11,351.30 on Jan. 20, 2000. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 1.53, or 0.1 percent, to 1,311.46, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 8.33, or 0.4 percent, to 2,362.55.

Metals hit as price of silver goes into freefall (Richard Irving, 4/21/06, Times of London)

THE price of silver collapsed into freefall yesterday afternoon, racking up its biggest one-day loss in almost two decades and triggering a massive sell-off in other precious metals.

Dealers blamed the near-14 per cent plunge in the silver price on a strong bounce in the dollar, prompting some of the hot money that has been chasing the market to a 23-year high to cash in profits. The sell-off gathered momentum as speculators who had been gambling on the silver price breaking through $15 an ounce scrambled to cut their losses, dealers said. [...]

Jitters also unnerved other commodities, including oil, where benchmark US crude gave up more than $1.5 a barrel after earlier hitting a new high of $72.49, and copper, where prices fell by more than $200 a tonne.

Dealers had been cautioning that metals markets might be vulnerable to a correction following recent spikes in many commodities, but the violence of the downturn still took many by surprise.

Given that the natural price of oil is under $50 per barrel they're in for a real surprise at some point.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 21, 2006 9:17 AM