The markets finished the day early in preparation for the Independence celebration taking place tomorrow. The markets enjoyed mostly a positive day today as the Dow 30 added 129, hitting an all time high. The S&P 500 also enjoyed a nice day with gains of 5 points. The Nasdaq 100 continued to be weaker and even closed the day in the negative by 30 points as the tech stocks continue to see profit taking. Tomorrow the markets are closed for trading, but will resume normal operation on Wednesday where traders will be focused on the FOMC meeting minutes due out later in the afternoon.
The financial sector (NYSE: XLF) enjoyed another strong move higher today as investors continue to celebrate the higher dividends coming as well as share buybacks which were announced last week. The XLF added 1.46% today which gets it almost to all time highs. Since June 1st the banking stocks have been making a move higher. The XLF has added almost 8% in that short time period.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) was one of the weaker tech stocks today losing 3.62%, closing near the lows of the day. The tech stock has been experiencing some selling pressure lately as investors take profits from its amazing run. In the last 8 days however, Nvidia is lower by over 12% on trading volume that is slightly above average.
Alcoa Corporation (NYSE: AA) added to its recent rally today adding 4.20%, closing above 2 month highs. Technical traders have noted the turnaround that has been slowly taking place since May and today seemed to participate in the move. For the year AA is up almost 20%, but that's about half the amount it was up early in the year. Analysts seem optimistic about the future trend here but only time will tell.