"The stock market will be aiming to regroup from Thursday's broad-based selling effort, which followed on the heels of some mixed economic data, some nervous-sounding remarks from leading hedge fund manager David Tepper, some weak GDP data out of the eurozone, and another rally effort in longer-dated Treasury securities that dropped the yield on the 10-yr note below 2.50%.
Growth stocks lead the losses in the early going, but by the closing bell it was the blue-chip averages that stood out as the day's weakest performers. The Russell 2000, which was down as much as 1.9% at one point, battled back to end the day down 0.7% and just above its closing low from early February. The rebound effort transpired after the early selling pushed the Russell 2000 more than 10% off its high, leaving it in the throes of a technical correction. Notwithstanding the comeback try, the Russell 2000 still ended the session below its 200-day moving average (1116.73).
The continued weakness in the small-cap stocks, though, looked to have bled into the large-cap issues as there simply wasn't a great deal of buying interest. Every S&P 500 sector, with the exception of the telecom services sector +0.2%), ended the day lower.
Thus far, there hasn't been a rush to buy the dip. The S&P futures are off their morning lows, but still remain 0.1% below fair value, suggesting there will be a flattish to slightly lower start on this options expiration day. The latter is expected to boost trading volume, which has been light for most of the week. Volume on Thursday's sell-off hit 732 mln shares at the NYSE, which was the heaviest this week and slightly above the recent average.
Not surprisingly, the futures market liked what it saw in the headlines for housing starts and permits. Starts jumped 13.2% in April to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.072 mln units from 947,000 in March. The April level is 26.4% above the year-ago level and was ahead of the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which stood at 975,000.
Building permits also produced a positive surprise, rising 8.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,080,000 (Briefing.com consensus 1,008,000).
The offsetting factor in the Housing Starts report is that the bulk of the growth in both starts and permits came from multi-family units, which is a volatile construction sector.
Permits for single-family units increased just 0.3% to 602,000 while single-family starts jumped 0.8% to 649,000. Multi-family starts surged 39.6% to 423,000, which is the highest since January 2006. Even so, there is a positive GDP component to the Housing Starts report as the number of housing units under construction rose 2.5%".
The Treasury market's reaction to the starts data was fairly muted. The 10-yr note was already down three ticks ahead of its release and that is still where it stands, with its yield at 2.50%. In light of Thursday's big move, added attention will continue to be paid to the Treasury market's behavior as a dictating factor for the stock market.
Growth stocks lead the losses in the early going, but by the closing bell it was the blue-chip averages that stood out as the day's weakest performers. The Russell 2000, which was down as much as 1.9% at one point, battled back to end the day down 0.7% and just above its closing low from early February. The rebound effort transpired after the early selling pushed the Russell 2000 more than 10% off its high, leaving it in the throes of a technical correction. Notwithstanding the comeback try, the Russell 2000 still ended the session below its 200-day moving average (1116.73).
The continued weakness in the small-cap stocks, though, looked to have bled into the large-cap issues as there simply wasn't a great deal of buying interest. Every S&P 500 sector, with the exception of the telecom services sector +0.2%), ended the day lower.
Thus far, there hasn't been a rush to buy the dip. The S&P futures are off their morning lows, but still remain 0.1% below fair value, suggesting there will be a flattish to slightly lower start on this options expiration day. The latter is expected to boost trading volume, which has been light for most of the week. Volume on Thursday's sell-off hit 732 mln shares at the NYSE, which was the heaviest this week and slightly above the recent average.
Not surprisingly, the futures market liked what it saw in the headlines for housing starts and permits. Starts jumped 13.2% in April to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.072 mln units from 947,000 in March. The April level is 26.4% above the year-ago level and was ahead of the Briefing.com consensus estimate, which stood at 975,000.
Building permits also produced a positive surprise, rising 8.0% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,080,000 (Briefing.com consensus 1,008,000).
The offsetting factor in the Housing Starts report is that the bulk of the growth in both starts and permits came from multi-family units, which is a volatile construction sector.
Permits for single-family units increased just 0.3% to 602,000 while single-family starts jumped 0.8% to 649,000. Multi-family starts surged 39.6% to 423,000, which is the highest since January 2006. Even so, there is a positive GDP component to the Housing Starts report as the number of housing units under construction rose 2.5%".
The Treasury market's reaction to the starts data was fairly muted. The 10-yr note was already down three ticks ahead of its release and that is still where it stands, with its yield at 2.50%. In light of Thursday's big move, added attention will continue to be paid to the Treasury market's behavior as a dictating factor for the stock market.
