The S&P once again topped 1,850 and all major indices reported modest to neligible gains on April 8 in anticipation of the earnings report of major aluminum fabricator Alcoa (AA) .

Alcoa’s longstanding relationship to the Dow, coupled with their propensity to report early in the quarter, has made Alcoa the generally accepted bellwether of the entire earnings season. Alcoa has had a string of successful reports, something the bulls would more than like to see continue with the first earnings report of 2014.

Other than the Alcoa earnings, a lack of economic data and little news on the Russian front left the market to its own devices, and the market responded with cautious optimism. Tech led the charge for the S&P and NASDAQ, with First Solar (FSLR) rising 7.01 percent on heavy volume. eBay (EBAY) , Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX) also had big up-days, with each gaining over 2 percent.   

In the Dow, Nike Inc. (NKE) was up 3 percent on an upgrade from Stifel. This was offset by slight losses for Goldman Sachs Group (GS) , Boeing (BA) and Pfizer (PFE) , all of whom lost around 1 percent.

Market Results for April 8, 2014

  • Standard & Poor’s 500: +.38 percent to 1851.96 points
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average: +0.06 percent to 16256.14 points
  • NASDAQ Exchange: +0.88 percent to 4112.98631 points

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