(RTTNews) - While stocks showed a strong upward move in early trading on Tuesday, the major averages have pulled back well off their highs over the course of the morning. The pullback came on the heels of the release of some mixed economic data.

A half-hour after the start of trading, the Institute for Supply Management released its report on activity in the service sector in the month of December, showing that the pace of contraction in the sector unexpectedly slowed compared to the previous month.

At the same time, however, separate reports from the National Association of Realtors and the Commerce Department showed much steeper than expected decreases in pending home sales and factory orders in the month of November.

Nonetheless, oil service stocks continue to post strong gains even though the price of oil has pulled back off its high for the session and into negative territory. Steel, brokerage, and semiconductor stocks are also holding onto significant gains.

On the other hand, considerable weakness has emerged in the tobacco sector, while health insurance, utilities, and gold stocks have also come under pressure. The losses by gold stocks come amid a notable decrease by the price of the precious metal.

In recent trading, the Dow and the S&P 500 briefly slipped below the unchanged line, but they have moved back to the upside since then. The Dow is currently up 18.00 at 8,970.89, the Nasdaq is up 12.08 at 1,640.11 and the S&P 500 is up 3.71 at 931.16.

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Posted in Categories: Economy, Releases, USA.

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