Muddle Results Flows Down Wall St

NASDAQ Retreats After 6-Days Winning Streak
Wall Street opened solidly higher after the government surprised the markets by saying retail sales unexpectedly rose in February. However, enthusiasm for that report was offset by new data revealing consumer sentiment deteriorated in the beginning of March.

Stocks kicked off the session on an upbeat note today, as the Street savored an encouraging dose of data from the retail sector.

Against this ambiguous backdrop – and thanks to a pullback among financial stocks– the major market indexes struggled to pick a direction, finishing not far from breakeven.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA – 10,624.69) maintained its newfound perch above the 10,600 level, settling with a slim gain of 12.9 points, or 0.1%. Thirteen of the Dow's 30 components ended in the red, led by financial concern Bank of America's 1.6% deficit, while industrial issues Caterpillar and General Electric paced the advancing blue chips. Meanwhile, the shares of AT&T settled right where they started. Thanks, in part, to today's mild advance, the Dow ended the week with a gain of 0.6%.

Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Index (SPX – 1,149.99) gave up 0.3 point, or less than 0.1%, to finish just a hair's breadth south of the 1,150 level, but not before tapping a new 52-week high of 1,153.41 earlier in the session. In similar fashion, the Nasdaq Composite (COMP – 2,367.66) surrendered 0.8 point, or less than 0.1%, after touching its own new peak of 2,376.28. For the week, both indexes fared well, adding 1% and 1.8%, respectively.

As the SPX & Nasdaq traded rather flatly, the Dow remained trapped in a tight low-to-high range of only 50 points and that range was established in the first hour. The action from then on was even less energetic.

Noted that the short-term charts were unchanged from what we saw last night. Given the flat close, the status quo remains so this give us a chance the revisit the weekly charts.

For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 59 points, .55%. The S&P 500 gained just under 1% while the Nasdaq Composite gained a little more than that.

In other words, the week was essentially flat. While that isn't necessarily exciting action, the indexes are still holding the intermediate-term uptrends.

As mentioned these past few sessions, the U.S, market is overbought on a short-term basis. That doesn't mean we have to see an outright reversal, but it does put me on watch for near-term pullbacks and consolidations.

And that is where I will pick up on Monday. Have a great weekend.