Friday Market Action

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The stock market rattled and hummed on Friday eking out mixed results for the last trading day for the week. What started out weeks ago as the main ingredient for chasing the bear away and nirvana to stocks, falling commodity prices, are no longer stimulating and inspiring the equity markets to explosively reach for higher ground.

Conversely, even though negative economic data continues its steady march across the news, rumors about the next shoe dropping in any credit markets were just swept aside. For the time being, this market’s got legs.

The DJIA closed up 43.97 or .38 per cent at 11,659.90. The S & P 500 also rose 5.27 or .41 per cent to 1,298.20. NASDAQ fell, down 1.15 or .05 per cent to 2,452.52.

Total volume today on the NYSE was 1,171,169,440; advancing shares were 734,205,340 and declining shares were 427,731,700 with 9,232,400 unchanged. NASDAQ volume was a bit lower from yesterday, 1,755,336,360; 830,508,888 shares were up, 907,589,916 were down, and 17,237,556 were unchanged.

Bond yields fell and prices rose as the bond market reacted positively over falling commodity prices. The Federal Reserve can be more deliberate now when considering raising rates. The Two-Year Note closing yield was lower at 2.38 percent; the Ten Year Note also was lower to 3.84 per cent; and the Thirty Year Bond fell below 4.50 per cent to 4.46 percent.

Measurements of the economy appeared throughout the morning without destabilizing anything. Economic reports including factory output, industrial production, consumer sentiment, and the Empire state manufacturing index all rose.

Crude oil finished the day at $113.79 a barrel and Gold closed under $800 to $792 an ounce.