Stocks on Tuesday closed marginally higher than the Monday level as the day saw both highs and lows. Finally the stocks closed at 13 month high for the second consecutive day thanks to commodity linked shares that offset the decline in retail shares.

The Dow increased by about 30 points(0.3%) to end the day at 10,437.42 points. The S&P 500 increased marginally by 1 points to close just above the 1,100 level. The Nasdaq composite increased by 0.3% to close at 2,203.78. Since October 2008 all these three indexes are currently at their highest level.

The sectors which gained on Tuesday included Materials (gain of 0.9%), Telecom (gain of 0.6%), Tech (gain of 0.5%), Consumer Staples (gain of 0.2%), Financials (gain of 0.1%) and Health Care (gain of 0.1%). Consumer discretionary and Utilities registered a decline of 0.7% and 0.4% respectively. Industrials and Energy stocks closed the day at the same level as Monday.

With dollar gaining at the start of the trading day stocks started at a low level and remained at the low level for the most of day. This was expected as with dollar gain appetite for risky assets decline. In the last few hours however most stocks regained lost ground with the rebound in oil and gold prices and decline in the value of dollar. Oil increased to above $79 a barrel, while gold settled at a new all-time high of $1,139.40 an ounce. With the gain in commodity prices energy and material stocks gained. But these gains were offset by declines in the retail sector after Home Depot and Target announced not so good earnings outlooks.

Given the current turmoil in the economy stock markets are looking only at movements in dollar for direction. Investors take more risk when dollar is weak and vice versa. With US interest rates at near zero levels dollar is day by day declining against rival currencies. There was not much economic news to lift the spirit of the market. Inflation continued to be subdued and industrial production was less than what was expected in October. The producer price index which is a measure of inflation for manufacturers increased by 0.3% in October as against an expected increase of 0.5% for the month. Excluding food and energy prices PPI declined by 0.6%. Industrial production increased by 0.1% in October as against a forecasted increase of 0.4%.

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