What Was The Chatter In Equities Today?

Stocks and the US dollar
were pushed higher by a better-than-expected 52.2 reading for the Chicago
Purchasing Managers Index
while, as
expected, Treasuries and gold prices tumbled.

Equities

Equities surged after the manufacturing index
moved above the 50 boom-bust level for the first time in months. Also, helping
equities was market chatter about possible portfolio reweighting from bonds to
equities. The Nasdaq future
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was up a cool 20.00 to close at 1199.00. The S&P 500 contract
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was
up 14.10 to finish at 963.30,
and the Dow
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was up 139.00 to finish at 8852.

Fixed Income

Treasuries bore the brunt of the bright economic
data, but managed to close above their lows for the day as a result of index
related buying. The 10 year futures contract
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was down -005 to close at 119-020; the 30 year
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was down -03 at 120-16; and the five year note was down 005 at 116-145
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.

Metals

Gold closed lower as a result of a stronger
greenback and equities. July gold
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was down 5.10 to close at 364.50;
silver
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was down by 4.20 to close at 4.5330. The base metals were
benefited nicely from the manufacturing data, as copper was up 1.00 at 78.25
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,
and aluminum
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was up .0065 to close at .6595.

Energy

June crude was up .46 cents to
close at 29.56
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. And natural gas was down by .020 to
close at 5.925
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.

Currencies

The dollar had a strong session today as a result
of positive economic data and an announcement by the Bank of Japan that it had
intervened in the currency markets to the tune of $35 billion during May. The USD index
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was
up by .47 and
finished at 93.31.