Another somewhat split day in the markets, with the Nasdaq being left out of the party once again. The Dow put together a 86 point gain (+0.8%) to finish at 10750, aided by gains in AIG, Honeywell, United Technologies and DuPont. The S&P 500 added 5 points (+0.4%) to 1197, but the Nasdaq couldn’t even muster a 1 point gain, closing at 2053. The Russell 2000 tacked on 1 point (+0.2%) to 627, and as we mentioned earlier, the bond market send the 10-year Treasury yield back above 4% to 4.08%.
Market internals reflected the index numbers, with volume about average. Advances/declines were 5 to 4 on the NYSE but 7 to 8 on the Nasdaq, and up/down volume was 11 to 8 on the NYSE , but was the reverse of that on the Nasdaq. Interesting split in the new highs/lows numbers too: 198 to 19 on the NYSE, but 78 to 58 on the Nasdaq. The Nasdaq continues to struggle.
Big winners on the day were the gold&silver stocks, moving higher by 3.9%, followed by oil services (+3.1%), commodities (+2.2%), oil (+2.2%) and natural gas stocks (+2.0%). No real big losers on the day, the worst group being the airlines (-1.0%).
Crude oil prices rose by $1.64 today to $47.10 - sneaking back up toward that 50 level. The dollar took a 0.6 hit on the trade deficit report, and gold prices benefited, moving back up to $418/ounce.
Dell reports numbers after the bell - I’m sure some are awaiting their report eagerly. Let me guess - they will either meet expectations exactly or beat them by a penny. They always do. Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Update: What did I tell you? Dell reports earnings of 37 cents, estimates were for 36 cents. Either the analysts covering Dell are very good (fat chance), or Dell is very good at ‘meeting’ the expectations… Dell has a habit of beating estimates by a penny, it seems to me, nearly every single quarter. Something in that just doesn’t smell right to me. I don’t trust their numbers — never have, never will.
