Stock Market Today 2/9/10
US Market
Stocks Posting Strong Gains In Mid-Morning Trading
Stocks are seeing considerable strength in mid-morning trading on Tuesday, as traders are picking up equities at reduced prices following recent weakness. The major averages are all in positive territory, attempting to recover from recent three-month lows.
On the economic front today, the Commerce Department released a report showing an unexpected decrease in wholesale inventories in the month of December, although the report also showed a continued increase in wholesale sales during the month.
Wholesale inventories fell by 0.8 percent in December following an upwardly revised 1.6 percent increase in November. Economists had been expecting inventories to increase by 0.5 percent compared to the 1.5 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.
At the same time, the Commerce Department also said that wholesale sales increased by 0.8 percent in December after surging up by 3.6 percent in the previous month. The increase reflected a 3.0 percent jump in sales of durable goods.
The major averages have cooled their advance but remain near the highs for the session. The Dow is currently up 144.73 points or 1.5 percent at 10,053.12, the Nasdaq is up 22.66 points or 1.1 percent at 2,148.71 and the S&P 500 is up 12.81 points or 1.2 percent at 1,069.55.
Sector News
Airline stocks are some of the morning’s strongest performers, driving the NYSE Arca Airline Index up by 6.3 percent.
Steel and gold stocks are also notably higher, with the NYSE Arca Steel Index and the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index posting gains of 4.4 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively. The advance by gold stocks comes as the price of the precious metal is up $6.40 at $1072.60 an ounce.
Oil service, networking, natural gas and semiconductor stocks are also moving significantly higher, while modest weakness is visible among tobacco stocks, with the NYSE Arca Tobacco Index down by 0.3 percent.
(Source: iHub World Daily Briefing)
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