Bear Mountain Bull

A fairly lethargic expiration day, with the indices starting lower and working their way back up around the flat line by closing time. Sound familiar?

Internals were more negative than the indices would indicate, and unusually for an expiration day, volume wasn’t much above yesterday’s levels. Advances/declines were 8 to 11 on the NYSE and 9 to 10 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 7 to 12 on the NYSE and 6 to 13 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 48/4 on the NYSE and 46/26 on the Nasdaq.

Leaders — Health Care (+0.55%), Drugs (+0.51%), Defense (+0.46%), Utilities (+0.28%), Steel (+0.28%), Health Care Products (+0.26%), Insurance (+0.19%), Telecoms (+0.18%)
Laggards — Oil Services (-2.23%), Homebuilders (-1.69%), Network (-1.65%), Comp. Hardware (-1.37%), Gold/Silver (-0.84%), Natural Gas (-0.82%), Semis (-0.81%), Software (-0.74%)

Treasury Yields — 6-Month: .12%,  2-Year: .72%,  5-Year: 2.17%,  10-Year: 3.36%,  30-Year: 4.29%

Energy Prices — Crude oil: $77.80/barrel,  Gasoline: $2.0063/gallon,  Natural Gas: $4.431/mmBTU

US Dollar Index — 75.604

Precious Metals — Gold: $1149.10/ounce,  Silver: $18.52/ounce,  Platinum: $1445.00/ounce

BMB Note:  
Next week is one of those holiday market weeks that I don’t care for much at all, so unless something earth-shattering comes along, we’re planning on taking a few days off here at BMB. We’ll probably be around Mon-Tues, but at this point, we’re planning on skipping the Wed and Fri sessions.

On to this Friday’s failures. And keep your eyes and ears open this weekend, as the Senate plans to pull the same stunt the House did — pass the most sweeping legislation of most of our lifetimes on a party-line vote in the dead of night on a Saturday.

I’m sorry. Whether you’re for the health care bill or not, that stinks to high heaven.