Modest losses at Wall Street

Indices register losses despite a strong start
US stocks once again ended with modest losses on Wednesday, 10 June, 2009. Though stocks made a strong start at Wall Street, they ran out of gas in a couple of hours. Financial sector led the pack of decliners. Even Fed's Beige Book comments that signs of economic decline are slowing failed to push stocks higher. Despite an upward guidance from an important home-improvement retailer, stocks just failed to inch up in the green even for once since then. Crude prices reached an eight month high today.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower by 24 points at 8,739.02. The Nasdaq Composite Index, ended lower by 7.05 points at 1,853.08. S&P 500 ended lower by 3.3 points at 939. During session highs, Dow was up by more than 47 points.
Six of the ten sectors declined, led by financials, healthcare and consumer discretionary sectors. Materials, telecom and energy sectors managed to log in some gains.
Exxon Mobil, Microsoft, Home Depot and Alcoa traded as the main Dow winners while Mc Donald's, Wal-Mart and Caterpillar traded as the main Dow laggards.
Retailers tried staying strong today after Home Depot issued an improved outlook. This also pulled up the shares of its competitor, Lowes.
The Fed's Beige Book hit the wires around 2 pm E.T. It stated that the economy remains weak, but that the signs of decline are slowing. The Beige Book also revealed that five of the 12 Fed districts see economic declines moderating; several districts also indicated that their expectations have improved yet they do not see a substantial increase in economic activity through the end of the year.
Treasuries fell under renewed selling pressure amid news that the Russian Central Bank will cut its Treasury holdings. The $19 billion auction of 10-year Notes proved disappointing. The disappointing auction and rise in yields drove selling in the broader market.
Among the major economic reports expected for the day, the May Treasury deficit came in at $189.7 billion. The commerce Department reported that this was slightly more than the consensus that called for a deficit of $181 billion and much larger than the prior deficit of $28.6 billion.
The inventory report by the energy department pushed crude prices higher on Wednesday, 10 June, 2009. Price rose to eight month high today after energy department energy department reported sudden draw in crude inventories for last week.
EIA reported that crude inventories fell by 4.4 million barrels in the week ended 5 June, 2009. On average, a build of 100,000 barrels was expected. Crude imports fell 676,000 barrels a day from the previous week, while gasoline demand over the past four weeks rose 0.4% from the same period last year, the report showed.
In currencies trading Wednesday, the dollar reversed its earlier losses, with the dollar index up 1.3% at 80.541.
Economic news flow is expected to be slow tomorrow. Initial Unemployment Claims (week ended June 6) and Retail Sales (May) are due at 8:30ET, followed by Business Inventories (April) at 10:00ET. Only a handful of relatively small companies are scheduled to report earnings tomorrow.