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Today's Market Update with...

Ron Romaine, Value Line's Senior Industry Analyst

July 18, 2008 - 4:53 PM ET

Stocks and interest rates rose as oil eased again.

At the close today, following a good day in Europe, where 16 of 18 national markets advanced, the biggest US companies had outpaced the others. Today, the Dow Jones Industrials gained 50 points, to 11,497; the S&P 500 was up a fraction of a point, to 1261; but the NASDAQ Composite had slipped 29, to 2283; the Russell 2000 small cap index was down 3 and change, to 693; and the Value Line arithmetic index, the sole equally weighted benchmark, lost 4 points, to 1993. For the week, the S&P was up 1.7%, ending the longest losing streak in four years. Leading the Dow today were Citigroup (C), jumping 7.7% on a lower-than-expected loss, followed by Bank of America (BAC), IBM (IBM), and General Motors (GM), up 2.6% to 3.7%. S&P members Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) stayed in the news as they soared 23% and 20%, respectively. NASDAQ winners featured Sirius (SIRI), United Airlines (UAUA), Wynn Resorts (WYNN), and Teva (TEVA), rising 4.4% to 8.1%. Gilead Sciences (GILD), Google (GOOG), Focus Media (FMCN), and Microsoft (MSFT) gave up 6 to 10.6%

There were no economic news releases today. The near-month crude oil contract eased 41 cents, to $128.88 a barrel as President Bush agreed to join nuclear talks with Iran; gold fell over a percent, to $970.00 an ounce.

Seeing economic strength somewhere, bonds fell back, lifting interest rates 2 to 4 basis points, to 4.08% for the 10-year Treasury note and 4.66% for the 30-year bond.

Have a safe and pleasant, if hot, weekend.

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