Stocks closed flat on Thursday as buyers and sellers appeared to stand-aside prior to Friday’s September employment report. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite suffered small losses, but the S&P 500 gained 0.05%.
U.S. government bonds fell for the fifth consecutive day. The fall in bonds was attributed to a Labor Department report that showed the number of workers applying for first-time benefits fell to a four-decade low in the week ending Oct.1. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.74% from 1.72% on Wednesday.
Six of the S&P 500 sectors ended Thursday on the plus side, with materials (+0.8%) and technology (+0.2%) leading. Biotechnology stocks lagged again, with the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (ETF) (NASDAQ:IBB) falling 2.3%. And energy was up, led by an increase in West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil of 1.4%, closing at $50.44 per barrel.
At the close, the Dow fell 13 points to 18,269, the S&P 500 gained one point, closing at 2,161, the Nasdaq Composite fell 9 points to 5,307 and the Russell 2000 closed at 1,246, down 2 points.
The New York Stock Exchange’s primary exchange traded 816 million shares with total volume of 3.4 billion shares, and the Nasdaq crossed 1.6 billion shares. On the Big Board, decliners outpaced advancers by 1.2-to-1, and decliners on the Nasdaq led by 1.5-to-1. Blocks on the NYSE fell to 4,900 from 5,000 on Wednesday.
The overall picture of Nasdaq is positive, despite its inability, so far, to pick up enough buyers to break the logjam at just over 5,300. First support is at 5,290, then the support line at 5,160 that started one year ago. On the composite’s behalf, its persistence is typical of a pending breakout, as is the “V” with a CBR Buy at its bottom at about 5,100.
Conclusion: Trite, but true: “Never sell a dull market.” The chart pattern is positive, and should the Nasdaq Composite break out, the near-term target would be 5,400.
That would be enough to produce some dandy leveraged trades.
Today’s Trading Landscape
To see a list of the companies reporting earnings today, click here.
For a list of this week’s economic reports due out, click here.
