US stocks eked out strong gains for the second straight day on Tuesday, 06 October, 2009. Stocks started the day itself with strong gains with the weakness in the dollar persisting taking material stocks to high levels. But during the noon hours, stocks pared some of their gains but still managed to end with good gains.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended higher by 131.5 points at 9,731.25. The Nasdaq Composite Index, ended higher by 35.4 points at 2,103.57. S&P 500 ended higher by 14.3 points at 1054.42.
Twenty nine of thirty Dow components ended the day with gains. IBM, 3M, Caterpillar and Exxon Mobil were the main Dow winners. Boeing was the sole laggard.
All the ten economic sectors ended with gains led by energy, materials and consumer discretionary sectors.
Among the major economic reports expected for the day, The Institute for Supply Management non manufacturing index reported on Tuesday, 06 October, 2009 that the index rose to 50.9, higher than forecast, from 48.4 in August. Fifty is the dividing line between expansion and contraction.
Dow component Boeing has been a laggard for the entire session and a bit of a drag on blue chips. The company announced this morning that it expects a pretax charge against third quarter results of approximately $1.0 billion, or $0.90 per share, due to increased production costs associated with certain production programs.
The financial sector logged in good gains in the morning at first. But then, it retreated back mainly due to pressure coming from Goldman Sachs. The stocks weighed on the financial sector immensely today.
On Tuesday, gold for December delivery ended at $1,039.7, higher by $21.9 (2.2%) an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. During intra day trading, gold rose to a high of $1,045 crossing the earlier all time high of $1035 reached. Last week, gold ended higher by 1.3%. Year to date, gold prices are higher by 17.5%.
Crude prices ended higher at Nymex on Tuesday, 06 October, 2009. Prices rose as dollar fell to fresh lows once again today following hike in interest rate by Australia. On Tuesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for November delivery closed at $70.88/barrel (higher by $0.47 or 0.71%). During intra day trading, it rose to a high of $71.77. Last week, crude ended higher by 6%.
In the currency market on Tuesday, the dollar index, which measures the strength of dollar against a basket of other currencies, fell by almost 0.6%. The dollar also fell after the Reserve Bank of Australia boosted its cash rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.25%, marking the first hike since March 2008.
Also weighing on the greenback was a report that said Gulf-area oil producers, in concert with China, Russia, Japan and France, are planning to end the practice of pricing oil in dollars.
Barring MTNL and WNS Technologies, all the Indian ADRs ended in the green today. HDFC Bank VSNL were the largest gainers today going up by 4.3% and 2.6% respectively.
For tomorrow, there are no major economic data or economic report scheduled for the day.
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