Bulls Fight Back; Stocks Mixed Ahead of Fed, Data
January 24, 2012
Stocks finished mixed for the second straight session on Tuesday. Major indices opened the day lower as Greek debt negotiations stalled. Other negative headlines from Europe also dragged on sentiment.
Germany denied the validity of the claims in yesterday’s FT article that said the country would run the EFSF parallel to the ESM to increase the bailout firepower to €750 billion. Steffen Seibert, Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman, spoke to Reuters regarding the report. “It is not true. There is no such decision,” he said.
Also weighing on sentiment early on were concerns that Portugal would need another bailout and might be looking to follow Greece’s lead in terms of restructuring its existing debt.
Despite the negative morning news out of Europe, stocks would rally the entire morning and into mid-afternoon, paring the majority of early-morning losses. As we’ve seen recently, the dip-buying has been aggressive, and Tuesday was no exception.
In the afternoon, Portugal’s Prime Minister said that the country would not seek additional bailout funds, which gave the bulls all the more reason to keep pushing. While the S&P 500 and the DJIA still closed in slightly negative territory, all other major indices were in the green by the closing bell.
Though stocks weren’t drastically changed by Tuesday’s outcome, this session could have easily been a big (and long overdue) win for the bears ahead of the Fed Meeting, big-name earnings announcements, and a U.S. GDP report all later this week. The fact that the bulls were able to push stocks back towards the neutral zone gives them the “w” for the intraday battle on Tuesday.
Close Recap: S&P 500 -0.10%, NASDAQ +0.09%, DJIA -0.26%, Midcaps +0.43%.
Have a pleasant evening.
S&P 500 - Intraday
Remember, you are in control your email alerts! You can receive alerts for up to 25 free research report alerts.
S&P 500 - Last 12 Months
