Market Indexes held steady today despite a relatively positive Beige Book Report, Improved Home building, and a decent Treasury auction.

Markets held steady today as the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) finished up with a .03% increase, the Dow Jones Industrials (NYSEARCA:DIA) registered a -.10% decrease, and the NASDAQ (NASDAQ:QQQ) ticked up .34%.

The big news of the day was the release of the Fed’s “Beige Book” Report at 2PM Eastern today; Dr. Bernanke and his Fedsters maintained that the US Economy wrapped up 2011 with positive growth and that the US Economy, compared with past reports is experiencing “ongoing improvements in economic conditions in past months.”  The report also outlined that consumer spending, manufacturing, and bank lending were rebounding slowly, and real estate was increasing ever so slowly as well.

Other good news today included and increase in home builders reports, coupled with a positive US Treasury auction in which 10 year bonds (NYSEARCA:TLT) were sold at record low yields of 1.90%.  30 year bonds were also sold at under 3% yields, astonishing might be an understatement.  I have said this before and I will say it again, how low can interest rates go?  At $12 billion worth of merchandise sold today, it looks like the Treasury will at least be funded for a few weeks more.

Our friend Gold has also increased half a percent today to $1642.30 per ounce; it seems like rock bottom is not an option anymore for the precious metal.

In other (negative) news, ratings agency “Fitch” announced today that there is a “significant chance” of downgrade for Italy (NYSEARCA:EWI). In other ongoing news, nobody seemed too surprised about the Fitch statement as Europe still has many problems regarding debt that just will not go away overnight!

Bottom Line:  Markets held steady today after the euphoria of the “Santa Rally” and “First Five Days” of the new year; it will be interesting to see if the Bulls find a second wind to punch through today’s wall and keep the trading lights green.  With modest US Economic improvement, more growth is certainly be possible, however Europe remains a wild card and could derail us at any moment.  Stay tuned.

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Disclaimer: Wall Street Sector Selector trades a variety of ETFs and positions can change at anytime.

About John Nyaradi (http://www.wallstreetsectorselector.com) John Nyaradi is Publisher of Wall Street Sector Selector: Your Home For ETF Investing! John writes a weekly guest column, John Nyaradi’s ETF Edge for MarketWatch.com and his investment articles have appeared in many online publications including Trading Markets, Money Show, Yahoo Finance, Investors Insight, Fidelity, ETF Daily News, iStock Analyst , among many others. His book, Super Sectors: How to Outsmart the Market Using Sector Rotation and ETFs, is published by John Wiley and Sons and included among the Years Top Investment Books in the 2011 Stock Trader’s Almanac.