Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.11%) is in last place among the major averages on Thursday afternoon, up about 46 points.

A look inside the DJIA shows that UnitedHealth (UNH 318.00, +7.44, +2.40%), Merck (MRK 81.79, +1.47, +1.83%), and Microsoft (MSFT 179.33, +6.71, +1.42%) are outperforming.

Meanwhile, Boeing (BA 204.61, -9.39, -4.39%) is firmly lower.

The DJIA is now +0.35% higher on the week.

Elsewhere, U.S. Treasuries have seen some recent buying with the long bond returning to its opening high while shorter tenors are a bit below their best levels of the session, though they too have advanced in recent trade. The uptick followed the completion of today's $22 bln 30-yr bond reopening, which met solid demand. The sale drew a high yield of 4.844%, which stopped through the when-issued yield by an impressive 1.5 basis points while the bid-to-cover ratio (2.43x) was above average (2.41x). Indirect takedown (62.5%), however, was a bit shy of average (65.5%). Altogether, this makes for an encouraging finish to this week's note and bond auction slate that started with a sloppy 3-yr note sale on Tuesday.