One Stock Keeps The Markets Alive

This morning the major market indexes rallied higher right out of the gate. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded higher by as much as 75.00 points during the first thirty minutes of the trading session. Right around 10:00 am EST the major market indexes began to decline and actually reversed all of the early gains and went negative making an intra-day low at 11:30 am EST. Shortly after the market made that low the volume dropped off and the major stock indexes caught a small bid to take the market out of the negative territory and back to the slightly positive area. The catalyst for the market trading off the lows is Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM. Exxon Mobil Corp. has the largest market capitalization in the stock universe at over $305 billion. Therefore, this stock carries a lot of weight in the major market indexes. When Exxon Mobil Corp rallies the S&P 500 will often trade higher. Remember this is a large component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. Exxon Mobil Corp. is trading higher today more than 1.04 to $59.92. The stock has intra-day resistance around the $60.15 area. However, as many of our readers know rarely will the major stock averages decline sharply when this stock trades higher. There are a few other stocks that are showing some strength today and they are Walmart Stores Inc. WMT, and Google Inc. GOOG. Outside of these leading names this market is not very impressive. When stocks fail to rally on positive news this is generally a big negative for the over market indexes. Since last week there has been a lot of merger and acquisition news which is normally short term bullish, however, these markets have remained weak. Nicholas Santiago Chief Market Strategist www.InTheMoneyStocks.com