Today was about as quiet of a day as you will ever see in the U.S. financial markets in September. The market is clearly in a wait and see mode, waiting on the FOMC and their monetary policy statement set for next Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 17 points and the Nasdaq was lower by 5 points. The S&P 500 ended virtually unchanged, but in the green by 0.07 points.
Crude oil was the story of the day as the price of a barrel of crude reached a new all-time high today. Light sweet crude for October delivery finished the day up by $1.68 at $79.91 a barrel.
As one would expect, with crude oil at new highs, energy stocks were the strongest group today. Hess Corporation (NYSE:HES) jumped by 2.94% leading integrated energy stocks higher today. Halliburton Company (NYSE:HAL) traded higher by 2.2% on the day today. Also very strong were the energy companies with a lot of exposure to natural gas. Natural gas prices have been rising quite quickly in recent days. Devon Energy Corporation (NYSE:DVN) rose 2.4% on the day. Apache Corporation (NYSE:APA) shares traded higher by 2.39% after an analyst at Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to a buy.
General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) continued its recent strength and gained 1.01% on the day, leading the strength in conglomerates today. Tyco International (NYSE:TYC) also traded higher by 1.14%.
Technology stocks weakened quite drastically in the last couple hours of the day. At midday tech stocks were slightly higher, but by the end of the day the technology sector was one of the weakest sectors on the board. Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) fell by 2.23% on the day. NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq:NVDA) shares traded down 3.93%, likely a result of profit-taking after a nice run recently. Research in Motion Limited (Nasdaq:RIMM) bucked the trend in technology, rising by 2.93% and hitting a new 52 week high.
Notable new 52 week highs included Las Vegas Sands Corporation (NYSE:LVS), Humana Inc (NYSE:HUM), and Juniper Networks (Nasdaq:JNPR). Notable new lows included Wyeth (NYSE:WYE) and Alcatel Lucent (NYSE:ALU).
The market is likely to stay quiet again tommorrow, with Friday's retail sales and consumer sentiment data the next likely market mover.
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