Stocks were modestly lower but holding steady going into the last hour of trading Monday, although there were a number of solid breakouts in the stock market today.
The Nasdaq was down 0.1%, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.4%, and the Dow Jones industrial average gave up 0.6%. Volume was tracking higher than the same time Friday on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq exchanges.
Eagle Materials (EXP) rose nearly 3% in above-average volume after reporting better-than-expected earnings. It broke out of a flat base with an 83.10 buy point Wednesday. It's still just barely in the 5% buy zone.
The company reported earnings of 93 cents a share compared to 75 cents in the year-earlier quarter, a 24% gain. Analysts were expecting 85 cents.
Lumentum (LITE) bolted out of a consolidation for a 10% gain in big volume. It got an upgrade from Needham, which raised the price target from 35 to 40.
Verizon (VZ) and Yahoo (YHOO) shares showed muted responses to Verizon's $4.8 billion widely expected purchase of Yahoo: Verizon was down less than 1%, while Yahoo was off more than 2%.
