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Wall Street went home on Monday.
Stocks closed essentially flat for the second day in a row in a lightly-traded session as Wall Street traders closed out positions while a positive economic report kept losses to a minimum.
The session has been quiet all day, with the Dow moving 45 points the entire day with slightly more than 610 million shares trading hands. It is the sixth day in a row stocks have moved less than 70 points.
Today's Markets
On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.1 points, or 0.03%, to 10548.51, the Standard & Poor's 500 gained 0.22 points, or 0.02%, to 1126.42 and the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.88 points, or 0.13%, to 2291.28. The FOX 50 fell 0.26 points, or 0.03%, to 821.95.
The Dow was led higher by insurance company Travelers (TRV) and aluminum giant Alcoa (AA).
Stocks had been slightly red all day, dragged down by the financials such as Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC), but the bulls latched onto a positive Chicago purchasing managers index released this morning.
The December report, which gauges the economic activity for the Midwest, rose to a reading of 60.00 -- the highest level since January 2006. The monthly reading was considerably better than the 55.1 expected by economists, according to Thomson Reuters.
Weighing on the financial sector was a Wall Street Journal report that financial company GMAC is expected to receive $3.5 billion in additional government aid, on top of the $12.5 billion the financial firm has already received.
Traders pointed toward GMAC’s woes as a sign that while the financial sector has pulled back from concerns at the beginning of this year, the industry still has a long way to go.
Shares of drug giant and Dow component Pfizer (PFE) fell 0.5% after the pharmaceutical company said it was discontinuing research on an experimental lung cancer drug. Meanwhile Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) shares also fell slightly on concerns about an Food and Drug Administration dispute.
Stocks reacted little to a successful $32 billion seven-year Treasury note auction, which came in at a yield of 3.345%.
In the commodity markets, oil rose today by 42 cents to $79.29 a barrel while gold fell $4.60 to $1093.50 a troy ounce.
Company News
Drug maker Pfizer (PFE) said late Tuesday that it would be discontinuing research on an experiment lung cancer drug, called figitumumab, the drug did not appear to help patients battling cancer.
The Nasdaq Stock Exchange, owned by the Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ), was briefly evacuated Wednesday after a suspicious van was found parked near the site. The van ended up being owned by a street merchant, but Times Square and the Nasdaq was briefly evacuated.
Global Markets
In the U.K., the FTSE 100 fell 0.73% to 5497.86, France’s CAC 40 lost 0.62% to 3935.50 and Germany’s DAX fell 0.9% to 5957.43.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.86% to 10546.44 while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was essentially unchanged at 21496.62 and China’s Shanghai Composite rose 1.58% to 3262.60.
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