A pair of conflicting domestic economic reports combined with more unsettling news from Europe left stocks largely unchanged Wednesday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to only pick up 21 points to close at 12,418.42.
Commercial banks reported overnight deposits at the ECB of more than 453 billion euros ($591 billion), a record high indicating that most European banks still have serious concerns about lending to each other.
On the economic front, factory orders rose 1.8% in November, mainly due to demand for new airplanes.
Also, loan demand to buy homes and refinance mortgages pulled back in the last week of 2011, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The Nasdaq dipped a meager 0.36 points to 2,648.36 while the S&P 500 inched up any even more miniscule 0.24 points to end at 1,277.30
Here are some more details from Wednesday’s trading session:
Dow Jones Industrial Average:
- Up two consecutive trading days and three of the last four.
- Highest close since July 26, 2011.
- An intraday high of 12430.00 occurred at 15:44:10 today, representing an increase of 32.62 points, or 0.26%.
- An intraday low of 12337.25 occurred at 10:40:21 today, representing a decrease of 60.13 points, or 0.49%.
- Twenty of the 30 component stocks rose, 10 fell.
- Today's top five contributors to The Dow's movement and their point contribution: CAT (6.58), MMM (5.22), HD (4.54), INTC (4.31), MSFT (4.31).
- Today's bottom five laggards: IBM (-5.75), WMT (-4.69), VZ (-3.94), KO (-3.33), JNJ (-3.03).
- Down 1746.11 points, or 12.33% from its record close of 14164.53 on October 9, 2007.
- Up 5.93% from 52 weeks ago.
- Up 89.68% from its 12-year closing low of 6547.05 on March 9, 2009.
- Down 3.06% from its 52 week high of 12810.54 on April 29, 2011.
- Up 16.55% from its 52 week low of 10655.30 on October 03, 2011.
- DJIA crossed zero 21 times during today's trading session.
Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index:
- Dow Jones U.S. Total Stock Market Index, 13206.64 (prelim), down 7.47 points, or 0.06%, or approximately $14.1 billion in market capitalization.
- Down two of the last three trading sessions.
- Down 2538.75 points, or 16.12% (approximately $3.8 trillion in market cap), from its record close of 15745.39 on October 9, 2007.
- Up 94.21% (approximately $7.4 trillion in market cap), from the 12-½ year closing low of 6800.08 on March 9, 2009.
- Down 0.87% over the past 52 weeks.
- Down 7.70% from its 52 week high of 14308.37on April 29, 2011.
Data courtesy of Dow Jones Indexes.
