Markets finished in positive territory. Ken Meyers has your stock market on the Acadiana Business Index.

  • The Dow closed with a gain of 12 points to 13494 and the NASDAQ was higher by 15 points to 3135. The S&P 500 Index advanced over 5 points to 1450 for its first back-to-back gain in two weeks.
  • Better-than-expected readings on employment growth and service industries prompted a return to the risk-trade. The ADP’s private sector jobs report bested expectations ahead of Friday’s nonfarm payrolls number as companies created 162,000 jobs in September.
  • In addition, the ISM’s index showed service industries expanded in September by the most in six months.
  • The batch of encouraging data helped investors overlook a continued slowdown in China as the country’s services sector weakened in September to its lowest level since November 2010. As a result of the positive tone nearly all sectors finished with gains.
  • Telecommunication and consumer discretionary shares were the best performing groups led by Sprint’s advance of 30 cents to $5.20 and Netflix rallied $6.19 to $62.65.
  • Energy stocks lagged behind as crude oil fell to a two-month low, causing Chevron to lose $1.82 to $116.14 and Halliburton to declined $1.06 to $33.01.
  • Among company news, Hewlett-Packard dropped to its lowest level in nine years as it gave up $2.22 to $14.91 after its CEO forecasted a 2013 profit below street expectations.
  • NYSE Composite volume totaled over 3.5 billion shares. The NYSE was even on issues and 8-7 positive on volume.
  • On the NASDAQ, decliners beat advancers by 6-5 on issues and was even on volume.
  • In fixed-income, the 10-year note was up 1/32 to yield 1.61%.

For the complete report, click Ken's Market Report.

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