YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: The stock market was down more than 1% in
late afternoon trade, but a strong rally into the close came amid chatter that
Headlines related to the EU Summit also drove action ahead of the
open as reports contradicted
Tech and Financials weighed heavily on the broad market for most of
the day. Tech was down about 2% at its lowest level, but managed to nearly
halve that. Financials overcame a loss of well in excess of 1% to settle the
day down only 0.2%.
Energy outperformed for the third straight session. It had kept
losses limited for most of the day, but bounded higher alongside the broad
market in the session’s closing minutes. It settled with a 0.6% gain. Energy’s
strength came despite oil’s retreat to a 3.2% loss at $77.73 per barrel.
News that the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's Health Care
Law undercut Health Care stocks, along with the broad market, earlier in the
day, but the sector was able to rebound so that it finished the day with a less
severe loss of 0.3%.
Economic data featured a weekly initial jobless claims count total
of 386,000, which is almost exactly what had been expected, on average, among
economists polled by Briefing.com. The latest tally is also down slightly from
the upwardly revised prior week count of 392,000. As for continuing claims,
they declined to about 3.30 million from 3.31 million.
Separately, the third estimate of first quarter GDP showed growth
of 1.9%, just as it had before. No revisions had been expected. However, the
first quarter GDP Deflator was revised higher in the third estimate to reflect
a 2.0% increase in the face of calls for it to continue to point to an increase
of 1.7%.
Crude oil tumbled deeper into the red as stocks suffered from
weakened sentiment. The energy component fell off its session high of $80.00
per barrel set in morning action to set a session low of $77.20 per barrel
before it settled for a 3.2% loss at $77.73 per barrel. Natural gas touched a
session high of $2.83 per MMBtu, but quickly slipped
following a bigger-than-expected inventory build of 57 bcf.
A slight rally heading into the close helped reduce losses to 2.9% for the
session as prices settled at $2.72 per MMBtu.
Precious metals were under selling pressure for their entire pit
session. Gains by the greenback didn’t help their case. Although both gold and
silver popped to respective session highs of $1574.30 per ounce and $27.00 per
ounce following weaker-than-anticipated initial claims data, the metals quickly
tumbled deeper into negative territory as the EU Summit proceeded. Gold settled
1.8% lower at $1550.30 per ounce, just above its session low of $1547.60 per
ounce. Silver dropped to a session low of $26.10 per ounce just before it
settled for a 2.7% loss at $26.28 per ounce. As an aside, analysts at Morgan
Stanley lowered their precious metals price forecasts for 2012 through 2014.
Weakness among stocks had helped Treasuries trade with strength
before rolling over as the stock market rallied. An auction of 7-year Notes
drew a Bid-to-Cover of 2.64, Dollar Demand of $76.6 billion, and an Indirect
Bidder participation rate of 42.0%. For comparison, the past auction attracted
a Bid-to-Cover of 2.83, Dollar Demand of $82.1 billion, and an Indirect Bidder
rate at 38.2%, while an average of the last six auctions results in a
Bid-to-Cover of 2.81, Dollar Demand of $81.5 billion, and an Indirect Bidder
rate of 39.9%.DJ30 -24.75 NASDAQ -25.83 NQ100 -1.1% R2K -0.1% SP400 +0.3% SP500
-2.81 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 957/1.75 bln/1538 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1701/897 mln/1300