Dow and S&P Finish Close to Flat; Nasdaq Rises

The U.S. stock market spent most of Thursday's trading session consolidating Wednesday's losses and the Dow and S&P finished close to the flatline while the Nasdaq notched a gain of 0.40%. At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost a little more than 14 points to close at 13,060. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 13,012 and 13,088. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF SPY fell 0.05% to close at $139.79. Volume was lighter than normal with around 136.4 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month 142.3 million. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF QQQ, which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, jumped 0.62% to $67.72. The strength in the QQQ was largely attributable to a 1.50% gain in shares of Apple AAPL. Crude bounced back from yesterday's losses. NYMEX crude futures, the U.S. benchmark, added 1.61% to $103.10. Brent contracts traded on the ICE exchange, climbed 0.78% to $123.30. In ETF trading, the United States Oil Fund ETF USO added 1.08% to $39.26. Precious metals also rose on the session. COMEX gold futures jumped 1.11% to $1,632.00. Silver futures notched a gain of 2.05% on the day. The heavily traded SPDR Gold Trust ETF GLD rose 0.73% and closed at $158.31. Treasuries continued yesterday's rally. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT climbed 0.71% to $112.91. The yield on the 10-Year Note fell 4.5 basis to 2.18%. The U.S. Dollar was also stronger on Thursday, which helped to keep the lid on the stock market. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, rose 0.32% to $22.20. The closely watched EUR/USD pair was last trading at $1.3063.