Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] Stocks opened to mixed action. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average are slightly higher than yesterday and the Nasdaq Composite is slightly lower than yesterday. 

There is not a lot of conviction with markets closed tomorrow for the Juneteenth holiday. The lack of conviction also relates to last week's record highs. 

Total industrial production increased 0.9% month-over-month in May (Briefing.com consensus 0.4%) after being flat in April. The capacity utilization rate jumped to 78.7% (Briefing.com consensus 78.5%) from a downwardly revised 78.2% (from 78.4%) in April. Total industrial production was up 0.4% yr/yr while the capacity utilization rate was 0.9 percentage point below its long-run average.

The key takeaway from the report was that gains were widespread across the major market groups, with particular strength in manufacturing output that should mitigate hard-landing concerns.

Business inventories rose 0.3% in April (Briefing.com consensus 0.3%) following a 0.2% decline in March (revised from -0.1%).