US Orders For Durables Surge Ahead Pushing S&P

US Equities were little changed, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose to its highest level since December 2007, as orders for durable goods climbed last month and investors watched earnings.

Caterpillar Inc. added 2.6 percent as it forecast faster growth in its second half. Facebook Inc. (FB) rose 2.3 percent as options traders were the most bullish on the shares on record. AK Steel Holding Corp. lost 3.8 percent after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. downgraded the shares.

The S&P 500 (SPX) fell 0.1 percent to 1,502.05 at 9:48 a.m. in New York. The equity benchmark closed above 1,500 last week for the first time since December 2007. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 6.49 points, or 0.1 percent, to 13,902.47 today. Trading in S&P 500 companies was 12 percent above the 30-day average at this time of day.

“The sentiment is really, really bullish,” Barry James, who helps oversee $3.5 billion as president of James Investment Research in Xenia, Ohio, said in a phone interview. “That is a little bit of a warning sign to us that we could be more in a topping phase than actually a new bull phase. It would take a lot to really convince everyone that happy days are here, and we can just ride this off into the sunset.”

Orders for durable goods in the U.S. rose 4.6 percent in December after a 0.8 percent gain the prior month, a Commerce Department report showed today in Washington. Excluding demand for transportation equipment, which is volatile month to month, orders rose 1.3 percent. The median forecast of 76 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 2 percent gain in overall orders.

Bloomberg

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