Today was somewhat of a snapshot of the market’s past 14 months: all over the place, up, down, back and forth and when all was said and done, you were right back where you started. The major indices started out lower, moved higher mid-morning, fell well below breakeven mid-afternoon and then rallied a bit into the close to end up just below the zero mark - and a late day move in crude oil above the $53 mark didn’t help matters.
The Dow fell 18 points (-0.2%) to 10812, the S&P 500 dropped less than a point to finish at 1210 and the Nasdaq lost 4 points (-0.2%) to 2068. The Russell 2000 dropped 1 point (-0.2%) to 637, and the bond market moved lower, then back higher, leaving the 10-year Treasury yield at 4.38%.
Market internals leaned negative on average volume. Advances/declines finished at 15 to 17 on the NYSE and 13 to 17 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume about flat on the NYSE but 2 to 3 on the Nasdaq. There were 286 new highs to 66 new lows.
Not a lot of movement across the industry groups. Gold & silver stocks gaine 1.3%, and the energy group rebounded slightly with oil services up 1.2%, natural gas up 1.2% and oil stocks up 1.0%. Groups making moves to the down side included airlines (-2.6%, unable to escape the rising oil prices), semiconductors (-1.6%) and housing stocks (-1.1%).
As mentioned, crude oil prices moved up $1.37 to $53.05/barrel, the dollar index moved higher by 0.4% and gold prices, after falling early in the day, recovered to near $433/ounce.