US stocks fail to recover recover

Stocks oscillate in a narrow band for the entire day in search of direction

US stocks failed to recover on Tuesday, 23 June. A day before, on Monday, 22 June, 2009, stocks at Wall Street had slumped with indices witnessing the largest losses in percentage terms in two months time. On Tuesday, stocks spent the entire session trading in a narrow range in search of proper direction. The housing report, the only economic report scheduled for the day checked in almost line with expectations. Commodities went up today as the dollar slipped again today.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower by 16 points at 8,322.73. The Nasdaq Composite Index, ended lower by 1.2 at 1,764. S&P 500 ended higher by 2 points at 895.

The stock market spent the session chopping along in a relatively narrow trading range. The lack of direction left the major indices to finish the session in mixed fashion.

Six of the ten sectors ended in the red today led by the utilities sector. Financials, materials and telecom sectors were the ones to finish with gains. The materials sector tried to lend some support to the market today. The dollar slipped today after the housing report hit the wires. The bank stocks in the financial sector acted as the main winners.

But Boeing weighed heavily on the Dow today. The company pushed back the first flight date of its long anticipated 787 Dreamliner. Just last week Boeing affirmed it would hold the plane's first flight by the end of the second quarter.

The National Association of Realtors reported on Tuesday, 23 June, 2009 that falling prices boosted sales of pre-owned homes in May to the highest level since October, 2008.

Existing-home sales in May rose 2.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million. Sales have risen in three of the past four months, and are down 3.6% in the past year. The sales increase was less than the 4.85 million rate expected. The report also detailed that the median sales price fell 16.8% in the past year to $173,000, the third largest year-over-year decline on record.

Indian ADRs ended in a mixed mode today. While HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank ended in the red, tech ADRs like Infy and Wipro went up. Infosys gained a little over 1% while Wipro gained 0.6%.

Crude prices at Nymex once again crawled above the $69 mark on Tuesday, 23 June, 2009. Prices rose today as traders anticipated that tomorrow's inventory report will show drop in crude inventories for last week. The weak dollar also pushed up crude price. On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for July delivery closed at $69.24/barrel (higher by $1.74 or 2.6%). Last week, crude ended lower by 3.3%.

Traders are anticipating that tomorrow's weekly inventory data to show that U.S. commercial crude stocks dropped 1.2 million barrels for the week ended 19 June.

In the currency market on Tuesday, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies, fell as much as 1.3%. Federal Reserve policy makers began a two-day meeting today. The central bank has held its benchmark interest rate near zero since December.

The main item tomorrow will be the FOMC policy announcement at 14:15ET tomorrow. In economic news, May durable goods orders report is due at 8:30ET, followed by the May new home sales report at 10:00ET. Among earning releases, Monsanto is a major name.