Wall Street Heads into 2009 with Optimistic Spirit
Today was the first trading day of the New Year and so far the Dow Jones is up over 120 points. Investors will be looking to Monday's trading session as a better barometer of market sentiment for 2009 rather than today due to the low trading volume. The market doesn’t appear to be surprised at all that manufacturing activity fell more than expected in December, hitting the lowest reading in 28 years. Only three recessions in the history of the index have showed weaker manufacturing readings. Those recessions were in 1948 to 1949, 1973 to 1975 and 1980. Economic data…