Stocks: Tame End to Great July

Updated with Dow historical figures, and Treasuries, stock and commodity prices

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks capped off a stellar July with a mellow trading session Friday after the government reported that the economy shrank again in the second quarter but not as badly as expected.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 17.15 points, or 0.2%,to 9171.61, while the S&P 500 gained 0.72 points, or 0.07%, to 987.47. The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.8 points, or 0.3%, to 1978.5.

Look what the Dow did this month:

• Best monthly performance percentagewise since October 2002.
• Best July month in percentage terms since 1989 when it rose 9.04%.
• Biggest July point gain in its history.

The day's action wasn't much, but the major indices had their best performance for a July in years. The Dow rose 8.6%, the S&P 500 added 7.4%, and the Nasdaq tacked on 7.8% for the month.

"The big picture is that the economy shows signs of life, and even when there is bad news, stocks seem to do well," says Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "No matter what's thrown at it, this market seems to want to work its way higher, and you have to look at that bullishly."

The bottom line, says Detrick, is that a lot of people are trailing the market, and there's still a lot of money that's going to be chasing it. Click below to hear my entire conversation with Detrick, including one area he's cautious about and a technical breakdown of the next key levels for the major indices.

Stocks got a slight afternoon boost Friday afternoon as the House voted to refresh funding for the "cash for clunkers" initiative, which offers car owners federal subsidies of up to $4,500 for trading in old cars for new, more energy efficient vehicles.