Tuesday Market Wrap: Dow Climbs For 6th Straight Day While S&P And Nasdaq Record Modest Losses

The major averages closed mixed on Tuesday, with the Dow posting a slight gain and the Nasdaq and S&P 500 registering minor losses. Big movers included Netflix, Inc. NFLX, which fell almost 14 percent after reporting disappointing subscription numbers, and VMware, Inc. VMW, which climbed 9 percent after the company's quarterly earnings report.

Major Averages

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 26 points to close at 18,559, the sixth close in a row at all-time highs.

The S&P 500 declined about 3 points, or 0.14 percent, to finish slightly below 2,164.

The Nasdaq shed 19 points to close at 5,036, or 0.38 percent.

Related Link: The Market In 5 Minutes: Netflix Earnings Disappoint, Goldman Sachs Has Big Beat

Housing Starts & Building Permits

Among the economic reports on Tuesday were housing starts data and building permits. Housing starts for June came in at 1.189 million, which was ahead of the consensus estimate of 1.165 million and a prior year figure of 1.136 million.

Building permits for the month of June were 1.153 million, which came in slightly ahead of the consensus estimate calling for 1.150 million new building permits. This figure was also above last year's June building permits of 1.136 million.

Commodities

NYMEX crude oil futures fell 1.39 percent on the session to $44.61, while Brent futures lost 0.62 percent to $46.67. Natural gas prices climbed 0.48 percent to $2.74.

Precious metals were mixed on Tuesday, with gold prices rising and silver declining. Near the close of equities, COMEX gold futures were higher by 0.27 percent to $1,332.90. Silver futures lost 0.42 percent to $19.99 on the day. Copper recorded a gain of 0.98 percent and was last trading at $2.259.

In the grains complex, both corn and wheat were lower on the session. Corn futures in particular were quite weak on Tuesday, shedding over 4 percent to $3.485. Wheat futures declined 2.68 percent to $4.18.

Bonds

Treasury prices climbed on Tuesday, sending yields on government bonds lower. The iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF TLT had gained 0.56 percent to $139.04.

Treasury yields were as follows on Tuesday afternoon: The yield on the 2-Year Note was 0.70 percent. The 5-Year Note was yielding 1.14 percent. The 10-Year Note was last yielding 1.56 percent while the 30-Year Bond yield was 2.27 percent.

Currencies

The U.S. Dollar was higher on the session. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF UUP, which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, was up 0.48 percent percent to $25.10.

The closely watched EUR/USD pair fell 0.48 percent to 1.1022 euros.

Volatility And Volume

The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) shed almost 4 percent on the day to 11.97. The 52-week range in the VIX is 10.88 to 53.29.

Volume was light on Tuesday with around 19 million shares of the PowerShares QQQ Trust QQQ trading hands compared to an average daily volume above 25 million.