Wednesday again started out as a good day for the markets, but the exchanges couldn’t make up their minds and ended up relatively flat for the day. While Tuesday was a small step back, Wednesday was more of a sidestep than anything. Crude oil was up for the session marking the second consecutive positive day. The S&P 500 sectors were mostly negative on the day with a few exceptions. The best performing sectors were energy and industrials up 1.4%, and 0.4%, respectively. The worst performing sectors were real estate and utilities down 1.1% and 0.8%, respectively.
Crude oil was up 0.9% at $58.09.
Gold was up 0.4% at $1,268.90.
The S&P 500 stock posting the largest daily percentage loss ahead of the close Wednesday was Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) which traded down about 5% at $122.13. The stock’s 52-week range is $68.54 to $130.93. Volume was 7 million versus the daily average of 1.6 million shares.
The stock posting the largest daily percentage gain in the S&P 500 ahead of the close Wednesday was Concho Resources Inc. (NYSE: CXO) which rose over 4% to $146.79. The stock’s 52-week range is $106.73 to $147.77. Volume was 1.5 million compared to its average volume of 1 million.
