Another steady day for the market, with positive internals and slight gains in the major indices. The Dow Industrials finished the day with a 23 point gain (+0.2%) to 10712. The S&P 500 was up 3 points (+0.2%) to 1267 and the Nasdaq gained 17 points (+0.8%) to 2265. The small-cap Russell 2000 put in a strong performance, adding 10 points (+1.4%) to 718. The Dow Transports bounced back to life with a 2.4% improvement while the Utilities were higher by 0.8%. Bonds slipped a little and rates moved up: the 6-month to 4.5%, 2-year to 4.37%, 5-year to 4.31% and the 10-year to 4.39%.
Market internals were quite positive, and volume ticked up a bit from yesterday. Advance/declines ran about 2 to 1 on both exchanges, with up/down volume about 5 to 3 on the NYSE and 3 to 2 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 245/35 on the NYSE and 189/34 on the Nasdaq.
There were some big winners in the industry groups, with steel stocks up 6.1%, airlines up 3.3% and transportation up 3.0%. Following them were HMOs (+1.4%), retailers (+1.4%), defense stocks (+1.2%), telecom (+1.1%), semiconductors (+1.0%) and computer hardware (+1.0%). On the losing side of the sheet were the drug stocks (-1.3%) and oil services (-1.0%).
Energy prices were mixed, with crude oil falling more than a dollar to $66.93, while gasoline held near $1.80/gallon and natural gas moved higher to $8.86/mBTU. The dollar index didn’t budge (88.10), and gold drifted up to $558/ounce.
BMB Note: No complaints at this point. I must admit, I’m a little surprised that the market has held up as well as it has this week after Friday’s mess. But that’s good news.