Wall St Unfazed by Data, Stocks End Mixed

Lifted by another late-day comeback, the Dow closed with just slight losses Tuesday and the Nasdaq Composite ended in the green for the 14th time of the last 15 sessions despite an ominous report on consumer confidence.
Today’s Markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 11.79 points, or 0.13%, to 9096.72, the Standard & Poor's 500 fell 2.56 points, or 0.26%, to 979.62 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 7.62 points, or 0.39%, to 1975.51.

The disappointing consumer confidence report initially sent the Dow down more than 100 points and nearly overshadowed new data that showed U.S. home prices climbed on a monthly basis in June for the first time in three years.

“Clearly we’ve had a huge move, almost 1,000 points, from where we were just a couple of weeks ago. We’re certainly due for a pullback,” NYSE trader Ted Weisberg of Seaport Securities told FOX Business. “Certainly the economic news today was less than robust. But even though we’re down, the market looks like it kind of wants to hang in there.”

After closing in the green in 10 of the past 11 days, the markets struggled for most of Tuesday amid conflicting economic gauges and a mixed batch of earnings reports from companies like Viacom (VIA:25.15, -0.47, -1.83%) and Office Depot (ODP: 4.38, -0.99, -18.44%). But for the second-straight day, the markets saw a burst of last-minute buying, erasing nearly all of the Dow's triple-digit tumble.

The markets have been on a hot streak ince July 13 thanks to a very strong start to earnings season. The renewed optimism sent the Dow to its best two-week stretch since 2000 and to levels unseen since early November.

“We’ve had such an explosive move over the last two weeks that you can't stay up at these levels without at least a little bit of a pause,” said Michael James, senior equity trader at Wedbush Morgan Securities, who said it doesn’t “feel like” the markets are going to give back more than a few percentage points of their recent surge. “The earnings reports over the last several weeks have been solid enough to justify the market not pulling back too much.”

Almost half of the Dow's 30 components closed in positive territory Tuesday, led by Bank of America (BAC:13.37, 0.281, 2.15%) and Boeing (BA: 43.25, 0.98, 2.32%). On the downside, drug giants Pfizer (PFE: 16.03, -0.61, -3.67%) and Merck (MRK: 29.98, -0.82, -2.66%) tumbled more than 2% a piece.

With crude oil's three-day win streak ending, energy stocks like Schlumberger (SLB: 54.64, -1.91, -3.38%) were some of the biggest drags on Wall Street as the sector slumped nearly 1.5%. After gaining more than 4% over the past three session, crude fell $1.15 a barrel, or 1.68%, to $67.23. The energy sector wasn't helped by the latest earnings reports as BP (BP: 49.99, -1.34, -2.61%) said it is increasing its cost savings target by 50% amid a 53% dive in profits and Valero (VLO: 18.33, -0.45, -2.4%) suffered a quarterly loss.

After a stellar start to earnings season helped send stocks soaring over the past two weeks, the markets have received a mixed cluster of quarterly results this week.

Global Markets
Ending an 11-day win streak, London's FTSE 100 tumbled 1.25% to 4528.84. France's CAC 40 fell 1.23% to 3330.97 and Germany's DAX sank 1.46% to 5174.74.
Asian markets closed mixed as Japan's Nikkei 225 ended unchanged at 10087.26 but Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 1.84% to 20624.54 and China's Shanghai Composite advanced 0.09% to 3438.37.