April turned out to be a pretty good month for stocks.
Surprisingly good.
The Dow Jones Industrials, which had been down as much as 7.3 percent for the year on February 3, finished in the black for the year for the first time.
That said, not all stocks had particularly good months. Biotechs, some technology stocks and anything to which one could attach the term "momentum stock" floundered. How the markets will perform over the next six months is anyone's guess. The May-October period is typically the weakest six months of the year.
The Dow closed up 45 points on Wednesday, or 0.3 percent, to 16,580.84. 72, breaking its old record of 16,576.66, set on December 31. The Dow's intraday peak was 16,631.63, set on April 4. For the month, the blue-chip index was up 0.8 percent and is up 0.03 percent for 2014.
The Standard & Poor's 500 (NYSE: SPY) Index, up 0.3 percent to 1,884, finished April with a 0.6 percent gain and is up 1.9 percent for the year. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.3 to 4,115 for the day. But the index fell 2.1 percent for April and is down 1.5 percent for the year. It had been ...
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