CLOSING BELL

Dow 10663.99  +45.80, Nasdaq 2312.41  -4.76, S&P 1146.98  +2.00 

Stocks spent most of the day trading sideways with little conviction from the bulls or the bears.  When the market first open it looks as if the market would see a nice pop today, but it didn’t pan out.

The early move was led by natural resource plays like materials stocks and energy stocks. Both groups were up nearly 1% early on.

Strength among natural resource stocks stemmed from higher commodity prices, which were spurred by a weaker dollar and a report from China.   China reported that exports rose 18% in December and that its imports increased 56%.   This was the first time in 14 months that China's exports increased, and led some to believe that a global recovery was in the works.

The dollar spent the session weaker and posted a -0.6% loss against competing currencies, commodity prices fell and left the CRB Commodity Index with a -0.5% lose.  Materials stocks closed with a -0.2% loss, while energy stocks squeaked out a +0.1% gain.

Alcoa (AA) 17.45, +0.43 had a nice day ahead of its quarterly earnings report, to be release after the market close today.  Wall Street estimates are for the company to post earnings of +0.06 per share. 

 

Advancing Sectors: Industrials +1.2%, Utilities +1.1%, Health Care +0.4%, Consumer Staples +0.4%, Energy +0.1%

Declining Sectors: Tech -0.4%, Materials -0.2%, Consumer Discretionary -0.1%

Unchanged: Telecom, Financials