Daily Data Flow: S&P and DOW Hit All-Time Highs Again, Optimism Remains; Treasury 10-Year Yields Fall from Two-Month High; 2013 Graduating Class Entering Weakened Economy

S&P and DOW Hit All-Time Highs Again, Optimism Remains (Reuters)
The S&P and DOW hit all-time highs earlier today as stocks edged up, continuing the market’s recent upward trend. Specifically, eight of the S&P 500’s 10 sectors traded higher, with the S&P consumer staples index up by 0.8 percent. As a result, investors have continued being optimistic about the market. “We’ve seen the pace of growth ebb and flow in the past and I think investors may be getting more used to the fact that there are going to be pauses and it’s not too surprising we’re seeing one now,” said Kate Warne, investment strategist of St. Louis-based Edward Jones.

Treasury 10-Year Yields Fall from Two-Month High (Bloomberg)
Treasury 10-year yields fell from a two-month high today, as reports surfaced that New York’s manufacturing region unexpectedly shrank this month and producer prices dropped the most in three years during April. This drop has caused concern for investors about the strength of the economy. “We got numbers that suggest the economy is not on as strong a footing as we thought and we’re getting a bid,” said David Coard, head of fixed-income trading in New York at Williams Capital Group, a brokerage for institutional investors. “Inflation is really not a big deal.”

2013 Graduating Class Entering Weakened Economy (CNBC)
The 2013 graduating class will enter into an uncertain job market and face high unemployment upon graduation. Graduating seniors, who entered college during the height of the Great Recession and pursued their undergraduate careers during economic uncertainty, have expressed their frustration upon entering the workforce knowing that their degrees won’t necessarily give them a job. “Moving forward, I guess I’m not as innocent as maybe other college graduates have been in the past,” Steve Heiss, a graduate from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign who studied accounting and business administration, said. The unemployment rate for 20 to 24-year-olds was 13.1 percent in April, which is higher than the overall unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.