Rally Ends for Wall Street

Stocks in New York saw their short advance come to an end Thursday, the next-to-last trading day of 2006, as profit-takers decided to pocket some of their recent gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 9 points, or 0.1%,... See more » Stocks in New York saw their short advance come to an end Thursday, the next-to-last trading day of 2006, as profit-takers decided to pocket some of their recent gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 9 points, or 0.1%, to 12,502. At their worst point of the session, the industrials had been down as many as 32 points. The S&P 500 lost 2 points, or 0.2%, to 1425, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 6 points, or 0.2%, at 2426. On Wednesday, the Dow rallied for the second straight day and rose 102.94 points, or 0.8%, to 12,510.57, its best-ever close. The gains were driven by increases of more than 2% in Alcoa (AA - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating), Citigroup (C - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating) and General Motors (GM - commentary - Cramer's Take - Rating). In fact, the bulls had their way during the first two sessions of the holiday-shortened week, as the Dow has picked up nearly 170 points, the S&P 16 points and Nasdaq about 30. Crude futures ended their decline after the Energy Department's weekly inventory report was released. Crude supplies dropped by 8.1 million barrels, while gasoline stocks rose by 3 million barrels. Distillate inventories were higher by 500,000 barrels last week. The February oil contract rose 19 cents to $60.53 a barrel. Turning to the economy, the Conference Board said that consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in December to 109.0 from 105.3 in November. Economists were expecting a slight dip. See less »

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 9 points, or 0.1%, to 12,502. At their worst point of the session, the industrials had been down as many as 32 points. The S&P 500 lost 2 points, or 0.2%, to 1425, and the Nasdaq Composite...