Having suffered the worst thrashing the equities market has absorbed in two months, in Monday’s selloff, Wall Street, on Tuesday, adopted a defensive posture, eschewing any sharp moves and evidencing none of the volatility that characterized Monday’s downturn. In short, Wall Street played possum. 

To the extent that the market managed to avoid another iteration of the volatile meltdown that dragged market averages below key technical support levels, the initiative worked. The  S&P finished the session 2 points higher at 895. The Dow Jones Industrial Average which fell more than 200 points Monday in its worst setback in two months, finished the session off 11 points, or two-tenths of a percent, at 8328. 

Financial stocks once again provided a key leadership role in the session, with Bank of America ahead 3% and JPMorgan 2% higher. The gains came after the successful execution of a sale of two-year government Treasuries, and the start of the Federal Reserve policy meeting. It is a meeting that isn’t expected to result in any change in monetary policy, but which could show some changes in the markets, perhaps with some insight into the Fed’s quantitative easing policy. 

Meanwhile, commodity stocks – among the sharpest decliners in Monday’s meltdown – managed to stem their selloff, as energy prices ticked higher, suggesting some recovery in overall economic activity. Shares of Concoco Phillips added 2%. Of course, there proved to be enough cross currents in the market to prevent investors from getting too carried away with the appeal of stocks following Monday’s selloff. Shares of Boeing tumbled 6% Tuesday, after the aircraft manufacturer said it would delay the first flights of its 787 Dreamliner for a fifth time in two years in order to make some changes to its structure.