Updated throughout the week
Tuesday’s Close for Dec 29th, 2009
Written by: Mike Coval

I’m not sure we had anything different than that which was expected. No real action, bullish or bearish over the past few trading days. Investors seem content to wait until the new year before making portfolio changes.

To watch a video of Tuesday’s market action, along with my thoughts, Click here. The DOW closed down 2 points at 10,545 while the NASDAQ closed lower by 3 to finish the day at 2,288.

Energy: Oil prices were mostly flat and may be closing in on a top at $80.00. Late in the day, the price of crude futures were trading up $0.02 at $78.79 a barrel. Track the price of crude with the Oil ETF, USO.

FuelCell Energy, FCEL, rallied 16%, along with shares of other clean-technology firms, as the Washington Times reported industry players are calling for more support from the U.S. government. Some of the other players in the industry include Ballard Power, BLDP and China Bak Battery, CBAK. Legging into this industry might be a long term approach for those looking at some of the lower priced long shots.

Economic News: The consumer confidence index increased to 52.9 in December. That was roughly in line with expectations. The November reading of the index was revised up to 50.6. The Consumer Staples and Retail sectors were flat on the news.

In housing, the S&P/Case-Schiller composite index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas was unchanged in October after a 0.4% uptick in September. Economists had expected a 0.2% rise. The annual rate of decline slipped to 7.3%, an improvement from an annual rate of 9.3% in the prior month.

Consumer Staples: H and R Block, HRB received an upgrade to "Outperform" from Barrington Research. This up trending stock has just broken out of its upper BollingerBand on increased volume as the MACD’s and Stochastics have turned up.

I really there was more for me to write about but it was and extremely boring trading day with not a lot happening. This is likely to continue over the next week.

Homework: Today we start a new series on Bonds (We’ll end the series with a live trade) and how we as investors can use them in our portfolio. Whether it be T-Bills, Bond ETF’s or some hybrid, there’s likely to be something for us all to invest in. Each of these articles in this series will also be archived in the Incometrader Homework Archives.

Bonds, part 1 click here

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