Sellers were kept at bay again in afternoon trading Wednesday as the Dow Jones industrial average eked out a small gain, helped by a 4% pop in DuPont (DD).
Dupont's merger with Dow Chemical (DOW) is on track after the Wall Street Journal reported that European regulators were set to approve the deal, first announced in late 2015. Shares of Dow Chemical jumped nearly 5%.
The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.1%, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite edged lower by 0.1%. Volume on the NYSE and Nasdaq was tracking slightly lower than Tuesday's levels.
In economic news, existing-home sales in January hit a 10-year high. IBD's home-building group was up 1.2% early, but the gain faded to 0.1%.
In related news, homebuilder Toll Brothers (TOL) gapped up sharply on better than expected earnings. It's still well within buy range from a 33.58 entry.
The minutes from the Feb. 1 Federal Reserve meeting will be released at 2 p.m. ET.
In the stock market today, restaurant stocks were under pressure after Papa John's (PZZA) and Texas Roadhouse (TXRH) reported earnings late Tuesday. Both stocks gapped down in price, falling 6% and 13%, respectively.
IBD's restaurant group was down 1.5% in afternoon trading. A healthy economy is usually good news for restaurant stocks, but the industry is facing competition from food-delivery services like GrubHub (GRUB)
Garmin (GRMN) was another big earnings winners, up 7% to 54.28. It's still in buy range from a 53.67 buy point.
Inside the IBD 50, Alibaba (BABA) rose nearly 3% to 104.97 as it vies for a breakout from a cup-with-handle base with a 104.67 buy point.
After the close, watch for earnings from Weibo (WB) and Tesla (TSLA). Weibo was mostly unchanged ahead of the results while Tesla gave back nearly 1%.
Software name Splunk (SPLK) has been in rally mode in the run-up to its earnings report Thursday after the close. It's on the verge of clearing a long consolidation with a 65.85 buy point.
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