As Market Closes, Slight Gain Turns to Loss

Market Wrap-Up

The stock market struggled to sustain a mini rally into its third straight day. Trading began on a down note, with reports showing weak consumer confidence and another plunge in housing prices. That led shares down 100 points. However, upbeat numbers from agricultural concern Monsanto (MON) and a little bargain basement buying in commodities had investors crawling back from that downturn. As the market neared a close, though, a slight 10-point gain turned into a loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 17 points to 12,532. The Nasdaq gained 14 points to 2341 thanks to tech stocks.

Winners

After a broad selloff last week, many investors succumbed to the temptation to jump back into commodities and precious metals. The iShares Silver ETF (SLV) and the Market Vectors Gold Miners fund (GDX), two funds that have experienced big trading volumes the last few months, jumped 5.8% and 4.1%, respectively. IPath Dow Jones-AIG Agriculture Total Return (JJA) was up 4.6%.

Losers

Lower housing prices and dismal consumer confidence — two data points that stirred up recession fears — had investors selling off mortgage- and real-estate-related ETFs. Several iShares funds posted decreases. The iShares FTSE NAREIT Mortgage REIT ETF (REM) dropped 1.5%. The iShares FTSE NAREIT Retail fund (RTL) lost 2.1%.

Tuesday's Major Headlines

Launching Pad
Bear Stearns Current Yield (YYY) began trading Tuesday. This ETF is the first actively managed offering to hit the market. Its manager will try to pick from a variety of fixed-income products to beat the returns of a money-market fund. It will probably charge $35 for every $10,000 invested. Click here to see our story on this ETF.

Wednesday's Notebook

Numbers from Oracle and Deutsche Bank will probably dominate trading.

Earnings

Bluefly, CKE Restaurants, Deutsche Bank, Oracle, Paychex, Pep Boys, Resources Global Professionals, Robbins & Myers

Economic Data

MBA Mortgage Refinancing Index (7 a.m.), Durable Goods (8: 30 a.m.), New Home Sales (10 a.m.)

Quick Take

A look at how some of the industry's most popular ETFs did Tuesday.

10 Largest ETFs
Symbol	Net Assets	Price	52 Week High	52 Week Low	Volume
SPY	66,487	134.84	156.39	127.71	184,546,465
EFA	46,850	71.76	85.64	67.18	18,193,945
EEM	26,031	135.58	165.39	114.32	16,543,616
GLD	19,967	92.57	99.81	63.55	15,830,077
IVV	17,539	135.25	156.65	127.94	8,062,873
QQQQ	16,422	44.83	55.03	41.17	109,372,528
IWF	13,211	55.67	63.64	52.79	600,370
SHY	9,893	83.97	84.49	79.64	5,557,857
VTI	9,732	133.61	155.31	126.28	675,521
IWD	8,633	74.67	89.77	70.41	1,708,070