Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The stock market started the session a little sluggish, but found upside momentum in more recent trading. The S&P 500 sports a 0.5% gain and the Nasdaq Composite trades up 0.6%. Gains in the mega cap space have contributed to the recent improvement, but market breadth reflects an ongoing negative bias under the index surface. 

Declining issues lead advancing issues by a 5-to-3 margin at the NYSE and by a nearly 2-to-1 margin at the Nasdaq. The underlying bias is driven by consolidation activity following last week's record highs. 

Still, sizable gains in Apple (AAPL 217.08, +4.58, +2.2%), Microsoft (MSFT 447.10, +4.53, +1.0%), Broadcom (AVGO 1823.81, +88.77, +8.1%), and Eli Lilly (LLY 888.95, +10.50, +1.2%) have supported the major indices. 

Gains in some of the aforementioned names has propelled the information technology sector to the top of the leaderboard, up 1.0%. Meanwhile, the rate-sensitive real estate (-0.8%) and utilities (-0.5%) sectors show the largest declines.

Upside moves at the index level also coincided with Treasury yields moving lower. Market rates are still elevated compared to Friday, though, acting as a limiting factor for the broader market. The 10-yr note yield moved from 4.29% to 4.28%, which is seven basis points higher than Friday's settlement. 

Today's economic data was limited to the NY Fed Empire State Manufacturing Index, which rose to -6.0 in June (Briefing.com consensus -13.0) from -15.6 in May.