Why the Dow Popped Today

After a down day yesterday, all three major indices were up about a percent today:

In other indicator news, oil was up slightly to just under $100 a barrel, the yield on 10-year treasury bonds were down slightly to 1.9%, and gold fell for the sixth straight day to $1,548.40 an ounce.

Today's Italian long-term bond auction that helped spook the market yesterday had a "meh" result. The yields Italy got were lower than last month's auction, but still around 7% on 10-year debt. At least there were buyers!

Jobless-claims data was also positive, but if I had to pick one news event that was the biggest driver of the market today, it would be the National Association of Realtors' pending sales index. The November index came in 5.9% over last year's (and 7.3% above October's reading). The index is at a one-and-a-half year high.

Looking at individual stocks, the biggest winners predictably had some tie to housing. In the S&P 500, the top two and four of the six biggest winners were housing-related: Masco (NYSE: MAS) [8.5%], Pulte (NYSE: PHM) [5.9%], Lennar [4.6%], and DR Horton [4.4%].

In the Dow, all 30 stocks were up, but Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) [3.3%] and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) [2.2%] were the leaders. Because of their financial dealings, their stocks generally get boosts from favorable housing and Europe news.

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