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US Market Commentary

Choppy Trading Persists On Wall Street In The Mid-Afternoon - U.S. Commentary
3/11/2010 2:46 PM ET

TOP MARKET NEWS

House Republicans Adopt Unilateral Ban On Earmarks

Choppy Trading Persists On Wall Street In The Mid-Afternoon - U.S. Commentary

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(RTTNews) - With traders reluctant to make any significant moves amid the release of some lackluster economic data, stocks continue to experience choppy trading in the mid-afternoon on Thursday. The major averages remain nearly unchanged on the day.

Before the start of trading, the Labor Department revealed a modest decrease in first-time claims for unemployment benefits in the week ended March 6th, although the report also showed an increase in continuing claims.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said that the U.S. trade deficit unexpectedly narrowed in the month of January, with the value of imports falling at a faster rate than the value of exports.

In news from the embattled housing sector, RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties, stated that foreclosure filings rose 6 percent in February compared to last year but declined 2 percent from the previous month.

On the economic front, Devon Energy Corp. (DVN) said that it has entered into agreements to sell its assets in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and Azerbaijan to British oil giant BP plc (BP) for $7.0 billion.

The major averages have continued to see choppy movement in recent dealing, extending their lackluster outing. The Dow is up 0.30 points at 10,567.63, while the Nasdaq is down 2.48 points or 0.1 percent at 2,356.47 and the S&P 500 is down 1.05 points or 0.1 percent at 1,144.56.

Dow Components

The Dow components are turning in a roughly mixed performance, contributing to the lack of direction being shown by the blue chip index.

3M (MMM) and General Electric (GE) are turning in two of the Dow's worst performances, falling by 0.8 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively. Despite the retreat, the stocks remain rangebound.

Coca-Cola (KO), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and AT&T (T) are also sliding, while IBM Corp. (IBM) is showing a strong move to the upside, rising by 1.4 percent.

Travelers (TRV), Merck (MRK) and Home Depot (HD) are also seeing buying interest but continue to trade in a range.

Sector News

Steel and biotechnology stocks continue to see losses, while electronic storage stocks are also weighing on the markets, pulling the NYSE Arca Disk Drive Index down by 0.8 percent.

The disk drive index is being dragged lower by shares of Seagate Technology (STX), which are down by 1.9 percent. With the retreat, the stock is poised to close at a one-month low.

Semiconductor, oil service and tobacco stocks are also moving lower, while railroad and gold stocks are posting notable gains.

In Focus: Economic News

As mentioned above, the Labor Department released a report showing that initial jobless claims for the week ended March 6th edged down to 462,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 468,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to slip to 460,000 from the 469,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Peter Boockvar, equity strategist for Miller Tabak, said, "Due to the noise around the snow storms, it's best to look at the 4-week average, which smoothes out the data."

The less volatile four-week moving average rose to 475,500 from the previous week's revised average of 470,500. With the increase, the moving average reached its highest level since late November of 2009.

At the same time, the report showed that continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment help, rose to 4.558 million in the week ended February 27th from the preceding week's revised level of 4.521 million.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department reported that the U.S. trade deficit narrowed to $37.3 billion in January from a revised $39.9 billion in December. The smaller deficit surprised economists, who had expected the deficit to widen to $41.0 billion from the $40.2 billion deficit originally reported for the previous month.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region closed mostly higher on Thursday. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 Index gained 1 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index edged up by 0.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets ended the day moderately lower. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the French CAC 40 Index both fell by 0.4 percent, while the German DAX Index edged down by 0.1 percent.

In the bond markets, treasuries are mixed following the day's strong thirty-year bond auction. The yield on the benchmark ten-year note is trading at 3.725 percent, up by less than a basis point.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

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