YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks
slipped after a choppy start to the session, but buyers eventually stepped back
in to provide a broad lift. Their efforts picked up right around the time that
trade in Europe wrapped up.
Sentiment this morning was initially
imbued by renewed worries about financial conditions in Europe, where the
region's major bourses traded with weakness once again. Once trade there was
closed, the mood among market participants quickly improved. At about the same
time the euro started to move off of its intraday low, although it was still
down about 0.7% against the greenback at session's end.
The Nasdaq was able to
outperform its counterparts with help from tech stocks. As a group, tech issues
advanced 1.3%. Intel (INTC 25.34, +0.71) was a steady leader,
but Dell (DELL 15.63, +0.31) also advanced nicely ahead of its
quarterly announcement.
Wal-Mart (WMT 57.46, -1.43) weighed on the Dow for
virtually the entire session. The stock's weakness came after the retail
behemoth failed to produce the earnings expected by Wall Street.
An upside earnings surprise
helped Home Depot (HD 38.07, -0.18) shares bounce at the open,
but the stock failed to hold that move and never really recovered, not even
amid the broad market's afternoon bounce.
Word of an oil leak at a rig
run by Chevron (CVX 103.27, -2.90) and Transocean (RIG
47.86, -1.85) dragged down the pair's shares, as well as those of other oil and
gas services players. Collectively, energy stocks logged a 0.2% loss, making
them the only major sector that failed to score a gain.
Share volume was anemic for
the second straight session. Yesterday it barely broke 700 million on the NYSE
and today it failed to crack 800 million. Over the past 50 days share volume on
the Big Board has averaged about 1 billion shares per session.
A substantial dose of data
didn't even attract participants to the action. Overall, the reports were
generally proved pleasing.
Retail sales climbed by 0.5%
during October. A 0.4% increase had been generally expected. Excluding autos,
sales actually increased by 0.6%, which is well above the 0.2% pickup that had
been widely anticipated.
Producer prices for October
fell by 0.3%, exceeding the 0.2% decline that had been commonly forecasted.
Core prices were flat for the month, not too different than the 0.1% increase
expected among economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
The Empire State Manufacturing
Survey for November improved to 0.6 from -8.5 in the prior month. Many thought
it would remain in negative territory by an incremental margin.
Business inventories for
September were flat, contrasting with the Briefing.com consensus call for a
0.2% increase.
Crude oil rallied for 1.3% to
close at $99.37 per barrel, its highest settling price in 16 weeks. Futures,
aided by strength in equities and better-than-expected econ data, rallied
through the afternoon to close just shy of session highs at $99.84. The
sell-off in natural gas continued today, as continued above-avg temps across
the country weighed on demand. Futures traded to their lowest levels in a year,
at $3.39, and finished just above those lows at $3.40 per MMBtu, down 1.7% on
the session.
It was a quiet session for
gold futures, which ended higher by 0.1% at $1782.20 per ounce. Futures
recouped morning losses heading into afternoon trade and spent the remainder of
the session chopping around the unchanged mark. Silver finished up 1.2% at
$34.46 per ounce. Silver gave up its gains in mid-morning trade after falling
from session highs back to the unchanged mark. It was, however, able to recoup
some of its earlier gains in afternoon trade.
Advancing Sectors: Tech +1.3%, Industrials +0.6%, Telecom
+0.5%, Financials +0.4%, Consumer Discretionary +0.4%, Consumer Staples +0.4%,
Utilities +0.2%, Tech +0.2%, Materials +0.1%
Declining Sectors: Energy -0.2%DJ30 +17.18 NASDAQ +28.98 NQ100
+1.1% R2K +1.4% SP400 +1.0% SP500 +6.03 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1712/1.68 bln/825
NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1903/781 mln/1107