A rather unimpressive day in the market today, as interest rates and oil prices set a negative tone again and the major indices closed near their lows of the day. The Dow Industrials fell 59 points (-0.6%) to 10745, the S&P 500 dropped 9 points (-0.8%) to 1198 and the Nasdaq lost 16 points (-0.8%) to 2035. The Russell 2000 lost 3 points (-0.6%) to 627, the Dow Tranports fell 1.0%, the Utilities fell 0.5%, and the bond market rallied in the morning, only to give it all back during the day pushing 10-year Treasury yields back up to 4.54%.
Market internals were pretty pathetic, and volume picked up from yesterday. Advances/declines were near 1 to 2 on both exchanges, and up/down volume nearly 1 to 3 on the NYSE and 1 to 2 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 110/31 on the NYSE and came in just slightly positive for a change on the Nasdaq at 77/73.
Looking at the industry groups, we find steel stocks up 1.2%. That does it for the up side. On the down side were airlines (-2.5%), semiconductors (-2.1%, smashed again), disk drives (-1.6%), oil services (-1.5%), biotechs (-1.4%), health care products (-1.3%), natural gas (-1.2%), oils (-1.1%), networkers (-1.1%), and health care (-1.1%), just to name a few. You get the picture.
Crude oil prices closed afternoon trading at $55.05/barrel. Ouch. The dollar index moved higher by 0.2% today, while gold prices hung around $440/ounce.
Some pretty ugly stuff. Let’s hope it gets better before it gets worse.