Stocks Lose A Little Steam (SPY, QQQQ, GLD, USO, TLT, UUP, XLF)

Stocks lost a little bit of their mojo on Wednesday. After briefly making a run into positive territory early in the day, the major indices remained under pressure for the rest of the trading session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed around 22 points lower at 10,739. The Dow was the best performer of the major averages by a wide margin. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 10,708 and 10,805. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY tumbled 0.49% to $113.42. Volume was on the light side with around 191 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of around 214 million. The S&P 500 itself closed above the long term trading range between 1,040 and 1,130 once again at 1,134. This is a good sign for the bulls. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF QQQQ, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, lost 0.27% to $48.69. The broader Nasdaq market, however, lost 0.63%. The relative strength in the Nasdaq 100 can be attributed to Apple AAPL which jumped 1.40% to another all-time closing high of $287.75. Gold also hit another all-time high on Wednesday. COMEX gold futures jumped $19.10, or 1.5%, to $1,293.4. Next stop $1,500? This story has been getting a lot of coverage on the financial news channels, so that could indicate a near-term top, but all of the fundamentals still appear to be in place and gaining momentum for a move higher. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD severely underperformed the price of spot, gaining only 0.15% to $126.20, a new all-time high closing price nonetheless. Crude oil continued to show weakness during Wednesday's trading session. NYMEX crude futures fell around 0.35% to $74.71. The United States Oil Fund ETF USO lost 0.21% to $32.58 on heavy volume. Treasuries made their way higher as risk aversion and Fed front-running appears to be driving this trade. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT jumped 0.90% to $104.61. The yield on the 10-Year note fell 1.6 basis points to 2.56%. The U.S. Dollar was hammered once again as investors flee the currency after yesterday's FOMC statement, where the Fed made it clear that it is trying to trigger some inflation in the economy to stave off a Japanese style deflation. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the dollar versus a basket of foreign currencies, fell 0.73% to $23.14. The closely watched EUR/USD pair moved higher to $1.3395.