In a word: Yuk.
Not a very pretty day today - the markets started off badly and just never got going, tanking a bit into the close. The Dow tumbled 61 points (-0.6%) to 10664, and that number would have been worse had it not been for a 7% gain in HPQ on the CEO news. The S&P 500 fell 10 points (-0.9%) to 1192, and the Nasdaq took it squarely on the chin to the tune of 34 points (-1.6%) to close at 2053. The Russell 2000 was not spared, falling 13 points (-2.0%) to 626. The bond market was the place to be today, as the rally there pushed the yield on the 10-year Treasury below the 4% mark to 3.98%. Unbelievable.
Market internals were maybe even worse than the topline numbers would indicate, although volume remained somewhat light. Advances/declines came in at 4 to 7 on the NYSE and 4 to 11 on the Nasdaq. Up/down volume ran 4 to 9 on the NYSE, and a horrible 1 to 7 on the Nasdaq. Ouch. New highs hung in there against new lows, at 313 to 64.
Only a few groups managed to move higher today, the best being gold&silver stocks (+1.1%) and REITs (+0.7%). Lots of movers to the down side: the worst were airlines (-3.9%), biotechs (-2.7%), disk drives (-2.6%), networkers (-2.3%), semiconductors (-2.2%), housing stocks (-2.1%) and transports (-1.8%).
Crude oil bounced around after the morning inventory report and ended the day pretty much where it started, at $45.50/barrel. The dollar index fell 0.1%, and gold prices, after a morning dip, came back to $413/ounce.
