Today has been an excellent day in the stock market with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up over 143 points up over 1 percent and the NASDAQ up 12.4 points up .48 percent with 3 hours and 20 minutes left in trading for the day. Stocks were boosted by a positive report on unemployment. Several of my stocks holdings are doing quite well including McDonalds (MCD) which announced that they will be increasing by 50 percent the amount of dividends they pay to shareholders over the next three years. This is good news indeed as dividends are icing on the cake and increase the value of McDonalds stock. McDonalds is up well over 5 percent for the day for a total gain this year of over 28 percent. Another surprising gainer for the day was Lowes Inc, (LOW) up over 3.2 percent for the day. This stock is still down 9 percent for the year but this recent gain is most likely due to the stock buyback plan. If we could just get out of this housing recession Lowes stock would jump through the roof. I still like shopping there so I will hold on to the stock a little longer. Another large gainer for the day was JP Morgan Chase (JPM) up over 2.5 percent for the day on positive market and employment outlook. JP Morgan Chase is up over 6 percent for the year or 12 percent for the last two years. My total gains for the year are approaching 9 percent which is not bad considering the terrible downturn in the market earlier this year.

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