Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] There was a pickup in buying interest in the past 30 minutes that manifested itself in improved breadth figures. Advancers lead decliners by a roughly 8-to-5 margin at the NYSE and by a roughly 3-to-2 margin at the Nasdaq. Still, that buying interest did not persist with vigor, as sellers ran interference.

Seven S&P 500 sectors are trading higher with utilities (+1.0%) at the top of the list followed by communication services (+0.7%).

The energy sector (-0.6%) and the information technology sector (-0.5%) are the biggest laggards. Semiconductor stocks have been a pocket of weakness in today's session, suppressed more by the disappointing guidance from Texas Instruments (TXN 187.17, -13.44, -6.7%) than anything else. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 1.0%.