NEW YORK — Investors might be worried about the soundness of the market’s rally, but they’re also worried about missing it.
Stocks reversed steep losses in the final hour of trading Monday to end little changed. The Dow Jones industrial average recovered from a 130-point slide to end up a little more than a point.
The market spent much of the day falling along with commodities prices but then regained ground as commodities came off their lows. A retreat in metals prices pressured the stocks of companies including aluminum maker Alcoa and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold. Commodities tend to rise along with investors’ belief in an economic recovery and fall when pessimism sets in.
But volume on the stock market was light, and Stephen Carl, head of equity trading at the Williams Capital Group in New York, said that made the market susceptible to quick changes in direction.
With fewer players trading stocks, it takes relatively less action to nudge the market from one direction to another.
“On light volume, they’re just kind of looking for anything” to move stocks, Carl said.
As Monday’s trading wound down and prices were recovering, many investors piled back in. Some financial stocks were among those that recovered as investors waited to see which banks will be allowed to repay government bailout money. The government may issue that list as early as today.
Traders said the day’s jagged motions signaled that the market is still trying to determine whether to proceed with a three-month rally that has lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500 index 38.8 percent from a 12-year low March 9.
By day’s end, the Dow was up 1.36, or less than 0.1 percent, at 8,764.49. The Standard & Poor’s 500 slipped 0.95, or 0.1 percent, to 939.14, and the Nasdaq composite fell 7.02, or 0.4 percent, to 1,842.40.
Monday marked the arrival of Travelers and Cisco Systems in the Dow, replacing Citigroup and General Motors. Travelers rose 47 cents to $43.92, while Cisco was unchanged at $19.87.
