Market Update

Energy stocks recently staged a strong run that has the sector sporting a 0.6% gain. Although that isn’t quite as strong as the 0.7% gains currently displayed by Consumer Staples stocks and Health Care stocks, the Energy sector carries much more influence because of its market weight.

Still, overall gains remain only modest as stocks chop along in the final session of March. As things currently stand, the S&P 500 will book a first quarter gain of 12%, which is owed to an impressive run that has taken the broad market to 11 weekly gains in 13 tries.

Financials and Tech have been integral in the stock market’s first quarter performance, but both sectors have been relatively quiet today. While Financials have at least worked their way up to a 0.3% gain, the Tech sector remains mired in negative territory with a narrow loss of 0.1%.

Corporate news has been without any real consequence and economic data has hardly been influential in today’s trade.

Personal income increased in February by slightly slower-than-expected 0.2%, but personal spending proved better than expected by climbing 0.8%. Separately, the Chicago PMI slipped more than expected to 62.2 in March, while the final reading on consumer sentiment in March from the University of Michigan improved unexpectedly to 76.2. DJ30 +52.48 NASDAQ +1.70 SP500 +4.97 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1305/835 mln/1125 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 1895/295 mln/990

Market Update