Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (+0.1%) and Nasdaq Composite (+0.2%) hold slight gains, while the DJIA remains on its flatline.

Breadth figures reflect stronger buying interest today, as decliners outpaced advancers for the entirety of yesterday's session. So far, advancers lead decliners by a 7-to-5 margin on the NYSE and a 3-to-2 clip on the Nasdaq.

The Industrials sector (+0.6%) takes the early lead as the best-performing S&P 500 sector. Boeing (BA 231.78, +4.90, +2.16%) leads the advance, supported by headlines that Korean Air committed to purchase 103 Boeing Jets to modernize its fleet.

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 97.4 in August (Briefing.com consensus 96.3) from an upwardly revised 98.7 (from 97.2) in July. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 105.6.

The key takeaway from the report is that the August downtick was due to decreases in the Present Situation Index and the Expectations Index, though the overall confidence index has not changed much since the report for May.