The market continued its move higher today with gains in all the major indices, but today’s move came on very light trading volume. Not to mention that the move fizzled quite a bit in the last hour, probably because CNBC jinxed everything with their “alerts” touting that the major indices were at their highest levels in 2 months. The indices reversed as if on cue, and the ‘alerts’ quickly disappeared, replaced after the close by “Nasdaq up for seventh day” and “Dow/S&P up 5 of 6 days.” I remember back in March when they were “alerting” on the new yearly highs in the Dow - which promptly fell 1000 points in the next 6 weeks.
The Dow Industrials gained 52 points (+0.5%) to 10524, the S&P 500 added 5 points (+0.4%) to 1194 and the Nasdaq moved up 10 points (+0.5%) to 2057. The Russell 2000 added 3 points (+0.6%) to 613, the Dow Transports gained 0.2%, the Dow Utilities fell 0.5% and bonds rallied yet again, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield down to 4.07%. I have no idea who thinks buying a 10-year note at just over 4% is a good investment, but they’re doing it. Not me.
Market volume was very light today, but the rest of the internals were positive. Advances led declines by nearly 2 to 1 on the NYSE and 8 to 7 on the Nasdaq, with up volume leading down volume by 7 to 3 on the NYSE and almost 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows came in at 97/10 on the NYSE and 79/30 on the Nasdaq.
The disk drive index led the way higher today, with a 2.2% gain, followed by gold & silver stocks (+1.5%), housing (+1.5%), paper (+1.4%), computer hardware (+1.4%), oil services (+1.4%), oil stocks (+1.2%), steel stocks (+1.2%) and commodities (+1.1%). Airlines led the few losing groups with a drop of 0.8%.
Crude oil prices moved higher by a half-buck, finishing at $49.16/barrel. The dollar index fell 1/4% today, and gold prices held near $417/ounce.
