Market in Full-Swing Rally Following Week of Disappointments

The benchmark S&P 500 Index of U.S. equities looked poised to test the 1,400-point watermark it last set over three months ago, in early May, and recently traded at 1,392.75, up 2.03 percent for the day. The tech-heavy NASDAQ Index had similar gains of 1.89 percent. Corporate bonds also rose sharply, particularly higher-rated investment-grade issues.

Major commodities all rose, with the exception of perennial laggard natural gas and several livestock-linked assets whose behavior has been erratic as of late. Gold broke through the psychologically-important $1,600 per ounce mark once again to recently trade at $1,606.40 per ounce. Crude oil futures in New York exploded, rising over 4.5 percent to recently go for $91.13 per barrel.

Foreign currencies saw a dramatic upswing, as investors fled the relative safety of dollar-denominated assets. The euro, which was traded lower than $1.22 most of the day on Thursday, was recently up to $1.2377.

That move out of the dollar market meant the only asset category to see wide losses in North American markets, other than the greenback itself, were U.S. government securities.

Yields on benchmark 10-year notes, which move opposite of price, rose to 1.581 percent