Day Traders Diary

7/17/17

 The stock market has been quiet throughout the first half of Monday's session following Friday's trek to new record highs and ahead of this week's big batch of earnings reports. All three major averages currently trade just a tick above their unchanged marks with the S&P 500 showing a gain of 0.1%.

Nine of the S&P 500's eleven sectors are hovering in positive territory at midday, but gains have been modest with no group advancing more than 0.4%. The consumer discretionary sector (+0.3%) is exhibiting relative strength as retailers outperform, evidenced by the 0.9% increase in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 40.20, +0.34). The lightly-weighted materials (+0.4%) and utilities (+0.3%) groups also trade ahead of the broader market.

On the downside, the industrial sector (-0.1%) is the weakest performer with FedEx (FDX 212.47, -6.59) dropping 3.0% on news that the June 27 global cyber attack known as Petya significantly affected the company's TNT express business. The influential health care group (unch) is the only other laggard.

The top-weighted technology and financials groups are hovering right at their unchanged marks. Apple (AAPL 149.95, +0.91) and Microsoft (MSFT 73.24, +0.46) are trading higher by 0.6% apiece, but negative performances from Facebook (FB 159.24, -0.73) and chipmakers, among others, have weighed. The PHLX Semiconductor Index is down 0.3%.

For financials, BlackRock (BLK 423.69, -14.65) is the sector's weakest component after the company reported worse than expected top and bottom lines. BLK shares have dropped 3.4%.  Bank of America (BAC 24.04, -0.17) is down 0.7% and Goldman Sachs (GS 288.94, +0.34) is up 0.2% ahead of their latest earnings reports, which will be released on Tuesday morning,

Outside of the equity market, U.S. Treasuries are trading higher across the curve with the benchmark 10-yr yield dropping one basis point to 2.32%. Meanwhile, crude oil has slipped from its flat line as of late and now trades lower by 0.7% at $46.23/bbl.

Today's economic data was limited to the Empire Manufacturing Survey for July:

The Empire Manufacturing Survey for July fell to 9.8 from the prior month's reading of 19.8. The Briefing.com consensus estimate was pegged at 13.0.