Mergers and acquisitions, rising Japanese yen and the Judaic Day of Atonement: what do they mean for stocks? Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS Financial Services, offered CNBC his market insights.
The S&P 500, Nasdaq and the Dow were each rising Monday morning — the latter up as much as 125 points.
Cashin said that upsurge may have been driven, in part, by historical patterns surrounding the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday on Monday.
"There's old Wall Street folklore that says, 'sell'em on Rosh Hashanah, buy'em back on Yom Kippur.' I don't know for sure, but it works 17 out of the 20 years that I've seen on the floor," Cashin mused.
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He said that the market may have been buoyed by the wave of dealmaking. But he noted that traders are watching the US dollar closely, especially in light of World Bank President Robert Zoellick's comments that America mustn't take for granted the greenback's status as the global reserve currency.
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Cashin touched on "what happened last Wednesday," when all three indexes ended lower.
That "could have been critical — or it could've just been a speed bump and we lost a hubcap on it. We'll see if there's any real damage to the car this week."
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Disclosures:
Disclosure information was not available for Cashin or his company.