Closing Stock Market Summary
It was tough watching the stock market today, not because of how poorly it did, but because of how little it did until there was some seesaw action in the last hour of trading. The major indices had a mixed disposition throughout today's trade as neither buyers nor sellers showed much conviction. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal-Weight ETF (RSP) declined 0.2%.
The Nasdaq Composite had a small performance edge, drawing added support from select mega-cap names like Amazon.com (AMZN 147.73, +0.99, +0.7%), NVIDIA (NVDA 482.42, +4.66, +1.0%), Tesla (TSLA 236.08, +0.63, +0.3%), and Microsoft (MSFT 378.61, +1.18, +0.3%). Those gains also helped keep the S&P 500 in a fairly steady position relative to Friday's closing level. In fact, the S&P 500 traded in just a 14-point range between its high and low today.
The deliberate move was reflected in the modest changes for the S&P 500 sectors. The biggest gainer was the real estate sector (+0.4%) and the biggest loser was the health care sector (-0.6%). Everything else fell somewhere in between.
Market breadth tilted in favor of declining issues by a 4-to-3 margin at the NYSE and by a roughly 7-to-4 margin at the Nasdaq.
Separately, Treasury yields took a lower turn to begin the week, aided by a weaker-than-expected October New Home Sales Report and a $55 billion 5-yr note auction that trumped some soft demand seen at the $54 billion 2-yr note auction. The 2-yr note yield fell eight basis points to 4.87% and the 10-yr note yield dropped eight basis points to 4.39%.
The drop in market rates did not excite the stock market like it has for the most of the month, but arguably it helped keep selling efforts in check on this Cyber Monday, which saw the retail stocks deliver a lackluster performance.
The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT) declined 0.6%.
- Nasdaq Composite: +36.1% YTD
- S&P 500: +18.5% YTD
- Dow Jones Industrial Average: +6.6% YTD
- S&P Midcap 400: +5.2% YTD
- Russell 2000: +2.3% YTD
Reviewing today's economic data:
- New home sales decreased 5.6% month-over-month in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 679,000 units ( consensus 720,000) from a downwardly revised 719,000 (from 759,000) in September. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were up 17.7%.
- The key takeaway from the report is that new home sales activity slumped noticeably in October despite a big drop in median and average selling prices. The latter had to do with a large decline in sales in the high-priced West region, but in general, high mortgage rates and generally high prices combined to create affordability pressures for prospective buyers.
Tuesday's economic calendar features:
- 09:00 ET: September FHFA Housing Price index (Prior 0.6%)
- 09:00 ET: September S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index (consensus 4.1%; Prior 2.2%)
- 10:00 ET: November Consumer Confidence (consensus 100.0; Prior 102.6