Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market opened to somewhat mixed action. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has traded close to its prior close, sporting modest gains or losses, while the Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.1%) trade higher.

Market participants are digesting a big batch of economic data, which sent Treasury yields lower. The 10-yr yield was at 4.53% earlier, but sits at 4.47% now.

The price action in Treasuries has supported an underlying positive bias in stocks. Advancers lead decliners by a 3-to-1 margin at the NYSE and a 2-to-1 margin at the Nasdaq.

Total industrial production increased 0.5% month-over-month in January (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) following an upwardly revised 1.0% increase (from 0.9%) in December. The capacity utilization rate jumped to 77.8% (Briefing.com consensus 77.7%) from a downwardly revised 77.5% (from 77.6%) in December. Total industrial production increased 2.0% yr/yr while the capacity utilization rate was 1.8 percentage points below its long-run average.

The key takeaway from the report is that the jump industrial production in January was rooted entirely in the volatile component of utilities output, which surged as cold temperatures boosted the demand for heating.

Business inventories decreased 0.2% in December (Briefing.com consensus 0.1%).