Stocks Holding On To Gains After Early Upward Move - U.S. Commentary

(RTTNews) - After moving to the upside early in the session, stocks remain mostly positive in mid-day trading on Monday. Buying interest has waned from earlier in the day, however, with the major averages pulling back off their best levels.

Currently, the major averages are hovering in positive territory. The Dow is up 100.22 points or 0.6 percent at 18,224.02, the Nasdaq is up 19.67 points or 0.4 percent at 5,264.24 and the S&P 500 is up 10.64 points or 0.5 percent at 2,149.80.

The strength on Wall Street partly reflects a positive reaction to the upward move shown by overseas markets on the day.

An increase by the price of crude oil has also generated some buying interest, with crude for October delivery jumping $0.92 to $43.95 a barrel after slumping $2.85 or 6.2 percent to $43.03 a barrel last week.

Nonetheless, overall trading activity has remained somewhat subdued ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement.

Following a two-day meeting beginning on Tuesday, the Fed is scheduled to announce its latest monetary policy decision Wednesday afternoon.

Recent soft economic data has led most analysts to predict that the Fed will leave interest rates unchanged, but the central bank could still surprise the markets.

On the U.S. economic front, the National Association of Home Builders released a report showing a jump in homebuilder confidence in the month of September.

The report said the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index surged up to 65 in September from a downwardly revised 59 in August.

Economists had expected the index to come in unchanged compared to the 60 originally reported for the previous month.

With the substantial increase, the housing market index reached its highest level since hitting a matching reading in October of 2015.

Sector News

Steel stocks continue to see substantial strength in afternoon trading, with the NYSE Arca Steel Index jumping by 3.1 percent. The index continues to recover after hitting a two-month closing low last Tuesday.

Brazil's CSN (SID), U.S. Steel (X), and Olympic Steel (ZEUS) are turning in some of the steel sector's best performances on the day.

Considerable strength is also visible among networking stocks, as reflected by the 1.7 percent gain being posted by the NYSE Arca Networking Index. Ciena (CIEN) and Anixter (AXE) are posting notable gains.

Financial, housing, computer hardware and airline stocks are also seeing significant strength, moving higher along with most of the other major sectors.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly higher on Monday, although the Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index advanced by 0.9 percent, while China's Shanghai Composite Index climbed by 0.8 percent.

The major European markets also moved notably higher on the day. While the German DAX Index jumped by 1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index surged up by 1.4 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

In the bond market, treasuries are seeing modest strength after showing a lack of direction earlier in the session. Subsequently, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, is down by 1.2 basis points at 1.689 percent.