Stocks Close Mostly Higher As NASDAQ Held Back by Apple

Wall Street was mostly higher by the ring of Wednesday’s closing bell, as investors reacted positively to the previous evening’s Presidential address during which Barack Obama told the nation that a congressional vote to authorize military action against Syria would be postponed pending the outcome of the most recent Russian diplomatic initiative that would allow the pariah-regime of Bashar al-Assad to relinquish control of his country’s stock of chemical weapons.

With war seeming like less and less of a possibility in the immediate future, the Standard & Poor’s 500 added another 0.31 percent to finish at 1,689.13, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.89 percent higher at 15,326.60. The NASDAQ was hit hard by Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) 5 percent decline, closing at 3,725 points for a loss of 0.11 percent.

Metals stocks had a good day on the S&P 500, with substantial gains for aluminum manufacturer Alcoa Inc. ($AA), as well as United States Steel Corp. (X) . The copper miner Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) also ended the day over 2 percent higher on more positive economic data out of China.

Independent oil & gas drillers Newfield Exploration (NFX) and WPX Energy (WPX) were the index’s best performers, up 7.5 and 4.6 percent respectively.

All of the Dow’s components ended the day in the positive, with IBM (IBM) in the top spot on an advance of over 2 percent after the company announced that it was selling off its customer-care unit to Synnex.

The NASDAQ had a good day as well, but suffered as a result of Apple’s being downgraded after Tuesday’s release of the new iPhone 5 models. The tech giant dropped 5.5 percent to $467.70 by the close. Facebook (FB) , Micron Technology (MU) , and Himax Technologies (HIMX) all continued to recent gains to end the day higher as well.

[Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]