DOW - Back above 12,000 again!

Dow 12,043.56 +108.98 +0.91%

Market Update

4:30 pm : Broad-based buying in thin volume helped stocks score strong gains this session. The action precedes a pivotal vote by Greece's parliament tomorrow.

There weren't many headlines to act as cues for traders this morning. Participants even dismissed the day's only data, which featured news that personal income for May increased by 0.3%, but spending was flat. The consensus among economists polled by Briefing.com had called for a 0.4% increase in income and a 0.1% increase in spending. However, core personal consumption expenditures for the month increased by 0.3%, which is greater than the 0.2% increase that had been broadly anticipated.

After hovering near the neutral line for the first few minutes of trade, stocks began to stage a strong climb. Financials led the early effort with a quick sprint up to a gain of more than 1%. The sector spent the rest of the session sporting that gain.

Tech stocks eventually rallied to replace financials as the top performing sector. Tech, which is also the largest sector by market weight, settled with a 1.4% gain. Tech's strength helped give the Nasdaq an added lift.

Gains weren't limited to cyclical plays, though. Instead, all 10 major sectors ended the day in positive territory. Half of them had gains of nearly 1% or more.

The breadth and size of the move was partly made possible by the lack of share volume, which gave each trade greater relative weight than it would have had during a day of even average share volume. At just 835 million shares on the NYSE, total volume today was among the lightest of the year. Such paltry participation will likely persist ahead of the long, holiday weekend (U.S. markets will be closed next Monday for the observance of Independence Day).

Even though vacation plans are expected to pull many off of their trading in coming days, plenty of attention will be paid to Greece's progress in putting its fiscal house in order. Another step comes tomorrow, when the country's parliament votes on whether or not to accept the austerity plan that country officials agreed upon last week with the European Union and International Monetary Fund.