Major Averages Close Mixed

Stocks opened higher on Tuesday but proceeded to fall throughout the morning before rallying back to close near the unchanged line. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell a little less than 21 points to 12,633 on the day. The widely watched blue-chip index traded in a range between 12,567 and 12,720. For the month, the U.S. stock market had its strongest January since 1997 with the Dow posting a gain of 3.4% and the S&P 500 rising 5.5%. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSE: SPY) shed 0.04% on the session and closed at $131.32. Volume was lighter than normal with around 152.5 million SPY shares trading hands compared to a 3-month daily average of 190.6 million. The PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ: QQQ), which tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100, added 0.13% to $60.53. In Tuesday's after hours, however, the QQQ has fallen 0.38% to $60.30 after disappointing earnings results from Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). Crude oil futures fell slightly on Tuesday, with NYMEX crude futures losing 0.54% to $98.25. ICE Brent contracts, however, rose 0.21% to $110.98. In ETF trading, the United States Oil Fund (NYSE: USO) lost 0.50% to $37.82. Gold rose on the day, continuing its recent strong price action. COMEX gold futures added 0.37% to $1,740.80. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE: GLD) climbed 0.76% to $169.31. Silver, on the other hand fell on the session, with COMEX silver futures losing 1.09% to $33.16. Treasuries continued a strong rally to start the week with the iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NYSE: TLT) gaining 1.13% to $120.85. The yield on the 10-Year Note losing 4.7 basis points to 1.80%. The U.S. Dollar moved up on the day, which helped to curtail risk appetite. The PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish ETF (NYSE: UUP), which tracks the performance of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, gained 0.23% to $22.12. The closely watched EUR/USD pair was last trading at $1.3083.