May 16, 2014: Markets opened lower on Friday and bounced around the break-even line until about 3 p.m., when the direction turned decidedly positive. The 10-year Treasury yield rose a couple of ticks today to 2.51%. Looks like a buy-the-dip movement at the end of the day. Shortly before the closing bell the DJIA traded up 0.26%, the S&P 500 was up 0.34%, and the Nasdaq Composite traded up 0.46%.

The DJIA’s most heavily weighted stock is Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and today the credit card issuer traded higher all day, rising 1.21% at $209.96 just before the closing bell. Again today there was no news on the stock, but financials traded up fractionally all day. Volume totaled about 3.5 mllion shares, right around the daily average.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) added 0.94% to trade at $105.99. There was no news on the company but it’s stock is up about 21% in the past 12 months and the bulls remain convinced it’s going higher. Share volume was about 15% higher than the daily average of around 5.2 million shares traded..

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) traded up 2.23% at $49.03 in a 52-week range of $45.08 to $53.56. Volume was less than half the daily average of nearly 43 million shares. Verizon stock was added to a number of major portfolios last quarter, included Warren Buffett’s and John Paulson’s.

The Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD) reports quarterly earnings next Tuesday and analysts are looking for earnings of $0.99 per share on revenues of $19.96 billion. Shares traded up 1.34% at $77.26 today. The Census Bureau reported a sharply higher number of new housing starts this morning and that could have give the shares a shot in the arm. Share volume was about 10% above the daily average of around 6.8 million shares traded.

Of the Dow 30 stocks 20 looked to close higher today while 10 were on their way to a lower finish.

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