Sam Collins

Bulls Will Struggle Without Higher Volume

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During the first 70 minutes of trading yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) gained almost 100 points and, at that point, everyone could have gone home or to the beach.

Yesterday, all 10 S&P sectors had solid gains, but there was little to explain why and the volume on the NYSE was one of the lowest of the year.

Crude oil was higher, and that helped the energy stocks, which were up 1.3%. And financials recovered some of the losses of last week, rising 1.4%.

Technology stocks led early in the session, but gave back much of their gains and only gained 0.7% for the day. Nasdaq (NASD) underperformed the other indices for the first time in two weeks.

The Wall Street Journal attributed some of the gains to money managers making last-minute moves at the end of Q2. And there was evidence of some "window dressing" as favorite institutional stocks like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Merck (MRK) led the Dow's gainers.

There are several important reports to come this week. Some will appear on Thursday, since the exchanges are closed on Friday for Independence Day. They include the important June employment report and factory orders.

At the close, the Dow had gained 91 points to 8,529, the S&P 500 (SPX) was up 8 points to 927, and the Nasdaq rose 6 points to 1,844.