Sam Collins

What to Buy in This Market

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Consumer stocks led the market modestly higher on Friday, as a result of Citigroup (C) analysts' upgrade of Procter & Gamble (PG) to a "buy" from a "hold." PG rose 3.2% and pulled others along with it, including Home Depot (HD), up 1.11%. Lowe's (LOW) gained 1.43%, and Sara Lee (SLE) gained 5.74%.

September has historically been considered one of the weakest months for the stock market, but so far, with just eight trading days to go, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) is up 3.41%. And with stocks up nine of the past 11 days, sector rotation has been strong resulting from a broad base of investors willing to take more risk despite little change in the economic situation.

At the close Friday, the Dow was up 36 points to 9,820, the S&P 500 (SPX) gained 3 points to 1,068, and the Nasdaq (NASD) rose 6 points to 2,132.

Volume was high on all major exchanges, but that was primarily the result of Friday being a quadruple witching day, i.e., options close in four major markets.

The NYSE traded 2.2 billion shares with advancers ahead of decliners by about 3-to-2. On the Nasdaq, volume totaled 1.1 billion shares with advancers just slightly ahead of decliners.

For the week, the Dow gained 2.2%, the S&P 500 rose 2.5%, and the Nasdaq gained 2.5%.

On Friday, crude oil fell 43 cents to $72.04 a barrel, and the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) fell 17 cents to $55.18.

The U.S. dollar was stronger on Friday, and that sent December gold down $3.20 to $1,010.30. The PHLX Gold/Silver Index (XAU) fell $3.06 to $168.03.

What the Markets Are Saying

The pundits continue to moan about how "expensive" stocks are, and articles such as this appear in even the most-respected publications like the Wall Street Journal: "Bear Market Lurks as Dow Nears 10,000."

But the market isn't listening and neither are many investors. In fact, if anything, many are finally shaking free some cash to put to work in a market that they think still offers value.