Markets: News  

The stock market had a seesaw day of trading today, but the fulcrum in any case was the persistence of growth concerns. Those concerns were evident in the underperformance of the cyclical energy (-3.7%), materials (-1.4%), financial (-0.5%), and industrials (-0.5%) sectors, falling prices for oil ($104.24, -1.83, -1.7%) and copper ($3.74, -0.22, -5.4%), and another run of buying interest in the Treasury market. They were also evident in the outperformance of the mega-cap stocks, which were accorded some benefit of the doubt that their earnings prospects will hold up better in a tougher economic environment. On that same note, the countercyclical utilities (+2.4%), health care (+2.2%), and consumer staples (+2.0%) sectors were leaders throughout the day along with the real estate sector (+2.0%), which drafted off the drop in interest rates. The 2-yr note yield kissed 2.88% this morning after scraping 3.43% in June 14. The 10-yr note yield cruised to 3.02% after flirting with 3.50% on June 14. The 2-yr note yield and the 10-yr note yield eventually settled the cash session at 3.01% and 3.07%, respectively.Strikingly, the indices came off their lows of the day as Treasuries came off their highs for the day in afternoon trading. The late burst of buying interest, just like the opening burst of buying interest, was paced by the mega-cap stocks. The Vanguard Mega-Cap Growth ETF (MGK) was up 1.6% early, saw that gain get pared to unchanged, and then closed near its high for the session, up 1.8%.That revival helped the S&P 500 eclipse the 3,800 level late in the day, but as was the case earlier in the day, sellers stepped in just before the closing bell to knock the S&P 500 back below 3,800. Nevertheless, today can still be construed as a good day for the bulls. Granted cyclical sectors were weak, but money rotated within the stock market instead of out of it altogether on the growth concerns. In turn, the market once again showed resilience to selling activity despite a band of bad headline news that included a larger-than-expected 50-basis point rate hike by the Norges Bank, reports that Russia is close to taking over the Luhansk Province, and weaker-than-expected preliminary June manufacturing and services PMI readings for the eurozone and the U.S.The resilience in the face of that bad news was additive to the belief that the market has scope to forge a nice rebound effort from deeply oversold conditions into quarter end on rebalancing activity.Separately, Fed Chair Powell appeared before the House Financial Services Committee for day two of his Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to Congress. The views expressed there were predominately a rehash of what he said Wednesday before the Senate Banking Committee, so there was a muted reaction to his remarks.Reviewing today's economic data: Initial claims for the week ending June 18 decreased by 2,000 to 229,000 (Briefing.com consensus 230,000) while continuing claims for the week ending June 11 increased by 5,000 to 1.315 million. The key takeaway from the report is that it is another reminder that the improvement in initial jobless claims has stalled. Nonetheless, they remain at low enough levels that support expectations for another solid increase in nonfarm payrolls in June. This report covers the week in which the survey for the June employment report was conducted. The preliminary June IHS Markit Manufacturing PMI reading was 52.4 compared to 57.0 for May. The preliminary June IHS Markit Services PMI reading was 51.6 compared to 53.4 for May. The Q1 Current Account Balance widened to -$291.4 billion (Briefing.com consensus -$279.0 billion) from a downwardly revised -$224.8 billion (from -$217.9 billion) in Q1.Looking ahead, market participants will receive the May New Home Sales Report (10:00 a.m. ET) and final reading for the June University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment (10:00 a.m. ET) on Friday.Dow Jones Industrial Average: -15.6% YTDS&P 500: -20.4% YTDS&P 400: -20.8% YTDRussell 2000: -23.9% YTDNasdaq Composite: -28.2% YTD