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The DJIA has not moved much since mid-month and today was no exception with all three major indexes close to flat.The Conference Board said that its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 52.9 for December, up from up from 50.6 in November. Both numbers are extremely low compared to a reading of closer to 90 in an expanding economy. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home price rose a tiny .4% from September to October, but the most recent figure for the housing market was still down 7.3% from last year. Housing prices may be about to find a bottom, but, if so, the case for it is still shaky.
The unofficial closing bell numbers:
Dow 10,545.41 -1.67 (-0.02%)
S&P 500 1,126.19 -1.59 (-0.14%)
Nasdaq 2,288.40 -2.68 (-0.12%)
The big corporate news of the day is that Nokia Corporation (NOK) filed another patent action against Apple, Inc. (AAPL) which pushed the shares of both companies lower. The latest complaint was posted with the International Trade Commission and was accompanied by Nokia's sweeping statement that "Apple infringes Nokia patents in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers." Apple may as well just surrender the entire company to the Finland-based handset company.
A look at the twenty-five most actively-traded companies showed no strong buy or sell sentiment among them. Shares of most large financial firms were down modestly, but there did not appear to be any reasons for the action.
Oil quietly moved toward $80 a barrel, a threat to both tame inflation and low consumer costs. If the GDP recovery in the US is matched by a jump in crude toward $90 it will add to the reasons that the recovery could be undermined.
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