Midday Market Summary: An Uneventful Trading Day So Far
Today's midday summary is going to be short and sweet because there's simply not a lot of plot lines today. There have been a handful of earnings reports, only one economic release, and an intriguing M&A rumor. European markets, meanwhile, remained closed for the Easter holiday. Some Asian markets were open, but trading there was mixed, on the light side, and inconsequential for the most part in terms of its influence here.
What has taken place here has been a mostly range-bound trade for the major indices that has had a few moments of waffling but no significant moments of true conviction on either the buy side or the sell side. The major indices are all up between 0.1% and 0.3%.
There isn't a single sector in the S&P 500 that is up, or down, at least 1.0%. Health care leads on the upside with a 0.6% gain while the consumer staples sector leads on the downside with a 0.1% loss. The outperformance of the health care sector has been aided by a report that Pfizer (PFE 30.58, +0.33) may be considering a deal to acquire AstraZeneca (AZN 67.07, +3.58) for as much as $100 bln.
The earnings results from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 4.16, +0.47), Halliburton (HAL 62.52, +1.62), Hasbro (HAS 54.98, +0.37), and Kimberly-Clark (KMB 111.01, -1.53) were all better than expected. Each of those stocks has benefited as a result, with the exception of Kimberly-Clark.
IBM (IBM 192.41, +2.40) is trying to bounce back from the pounding it took on Thursday after it reported earnings. It is currently the best-performing Dow component on no new news.
Separately, the Leading Indicators report for March increased 0.8%, which was in-line with the consensus estimate. That was the third straight month of gains and above the 0.5% increase reported for February. It is a seemingly encouraging data point for future economic activity, yet the Treasury market so far is contradicting such assumptions based on the gains seen at the back end of the yield curve, which is more sensitive to rising interest rates that would accompany stronger growth. The 10-yr note is up five ticks (yielding 2.70%) while the 30-yr bond is up 11 ticks (yielding 3.50%).
Trading volume is understandably on the light side, totaling just 241 mln shares so far at the NYSE versus 286 mln shares at this same point last Monday.