July 7, 2009 (FinancialWire) (By Philip Holmes) — Stocks ended mixed on Monday as investors contemplated a less-than-fully-dismal report for the service sector and awaited Q2 earnings season, which is expected to be less-than-thrilling. The season kicks off with Alcoa (NYSE: AA) on Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 44.13 points on the trading day, to close at 8,324.87, while the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed at 898.72, up 2.30 points. On the other hand, the Nasdaq composite index shed 9.12 points, to finish at 1,787.40.

U.S. service sector numbers from the Institute for Supply Management hit the stands Monday. Economists like to see the Institute’s overall measurement above 50. It hit 47 last month, which was one point higher than expected and the sector is seeing its highest level of activity since last September.

Service sector jobs were down in June, but the rate of loss is improving.

But any new data will be weighed against the lousy jobs numbers released just before the holiday. Rightly so. Without a dramatic uptick in hiring there’s really no point in forecasting an overall turnaround in the third quarter. So, any “end of the beginning” talk that may follow the upcoming Q2 calls will sound like BS.

Well, unless you work for a cable news outlet.

The Investrend Economics Calendar lists Weekly Chain Store Sales (8:55 a.m.), Treasury auctions 3-year notes (1 p.m.).

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The Investrend Money Index is an indicator of the depth of market direction or indirection. While not always including the same stocks, the NYSE/NASDAQ 50 Most Actives indicate the direction in which the mass of money is flowing. Last session’s trading showed 18 advancers versus 31 decliners and one unchanged. There were no significant advancers. Decliners followed Cit Group Inc (Del) (NYSE: CIT) down 11.56%, Dryships Inc. (NASDAQ: DRYS) down 7.72%, Freeport Mcmoran B (NYSE: FCX) down 7.60%, Alcoa Inc (NYSE: AA) down 6.09%, Adv Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) down 6.08%.

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Today in History: In 1456, a retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death. Four conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were hanged in 1865. President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution in 1898 annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States. Japanese forces invaded Beijing, China, in 1937. Howard Hughes nearly died in 1946 when his XF-11 spy plane prototype crashed in a Beverly Hills neighborhood. Downed UFO believed to have been found in the Roswell UFO incident in 1947. The last patent on the LZW compression algorithm (in Canada) expired in 2004.

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