The market got off to a lousy start today, but managed to work its way back throughout the day, and finish with the major indices all near the UNCH line. The Dow 30 Industrials lost only a third of a point, finishing at 11012. The S&P 500 lost about a half-point to close at 1290, and the Nasdaq gained a point-and-a-half to 2320. The small-cap Russell 2000 did better than the big boys, gaining nearly 5 points (+0.7%) to 711. The Dow Transports fell 0.5% and the Utilities were higher by 0.1%. Bonds had a tough day, with yields moving higher across the board: 6-month at 4.41%, 2-year at 4.39%, 5-year at 4.36% and the 10-year at 4.43%.
Market internals were horrible at the start, but looked pretty fair by the closing bell, with volume very little changed from yesterday. Advance/declines were about 5 to 4 on each exchange, with up/down volume just below flat on the NYSE and just above flat on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows remain strong, at 257/18 on the NYSE and 179/27 on the Nasdaq.
While there was little movement in the major indices, some groups did make moves. On the winning side were oil services (+2.1%), disk drives (+1.9%), computer hardware (+1.3%, led by a 6% move in AAPL), housing stocks (+1.2%), paper stocks (+1.0%), networking (+1.0) and oil stocks (+1.0%). Losers were led by hospitals (-2.6%) and airlines (-1.3%).
Energy prices remained pretty steady. Oil moved higher early, but settled back down near $63.35/barrel, with gasoline at $1.74/gallon and natural gas at $9.36/mBTU. The dollar was quiet, with the dollar index falling 0.1% to 89.34. The spot price of gold fell back to $543/ounce.
BMB Note: Not much to report. The market recovered nicely after its opening stumble. In all honesty, I’d like to see a few things pull back a little here in order to provide better entry points. And the market, even if it’s going to go higher, isn’t going to go up every single day. Nothing to really worry about as yet. If / when a pullback comes, it will be interesting to see if the indices (S&P, Nasdaq) can hold their breakout points and not fall back into the December trading range. Rallies started from points of bullish sentiment like we were seeing in December (low VIX readings, low put/call ratios) don’t necessarily have far to go, but I’ll take higher prices as long as the market is willing to hand them out. But I have trouble forgetting that just a week ago things looked like they were on the verge of breaking lower.