MarketView for December 10

Summary  

The major equity indexes ended the day on a negative note on Tuesday, a day after a record close on the S&P 500, with much of the investment work anxiously looking ahead to next week's Federal Reserve meeting. Healthcare stocks were among the most active, while utilities were among the worst of the day’s performers. Nonetheless, the S&P 500 held above key technical indicators including its 14-day moving average, while the day’s trading volume remained below average even for a thinly-traded month.

A number of Fed policymakers suggested on Monday that the Fed may be closer than previously thought to trimming its $85 billion a month in bond purchases. At the same time, better than expected economic data, including a decline in the unemployment rate to a five-year low, helped ease the Street’s angst over a pullback in the Fed's stimulus. The Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee meets Tuesday and Wednesday next week.

Twitter hit an all-time high of $52.58, more than doubling its $26 initial price in early November and extending Monday's gains after a spate of product announcements that could raise revenues. Shares closed up 5.8 percent at $51.99. That helped other Internet stocks which performed well on Tuesday with Facebook up 2.9 percent to $50.25 and Yahoo up 3.5 percent to $40.22.

AbbVie shares hit a record high of $54.11 after its all-oral hepatitis C therapy cured 96 percent of difficult-to-treat patients in a late-stage clinical trial, keeping the company well placed in a highly competitive race to deliver new treatments for the serious liver disease. Shares ended the day up 1.8 percent to close at $52.14.

CVS Caremark and pharmaceutical distributor Cardinal Health announced a 10-year agreement to form the largest generic drug operation in the United States, the world's biggest generic drug market. Cardinal Health closed up 3 percent at $66.22 and CVS added 1.9 percent to close at $67.99.

Shares of Rambus rose 12.3 percent to $9.58 after the company settled a patent dispute with Micron Technology.

General Motors fell 1.2 percent to $40.40. The automaker said Chief Executive Dan Akerson will step down next month and be replaced by Mary Barra, the company's global product development chief.

Approximately 5.8 billion shares changed hands on the major equity exchanges, a number that was below the 6.1 billion shares traded on average so far this month, according to data from BATS Global Markets.