Stocks Finish Mixed in Ho-Hum Session

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Stocks finished on a mixed note Monday as the pro-bailout party's victory in Greece over the weekend provided only a fleeting dose of relief to the eurozone debt crisis.

The election results quelled immediate concerns about Greece being on a path to leave the single-currency bloc but news of rising borrowing costs for Spain kept a lid on investor enthusiasm about the outcome.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 25 points or 0.20%, at 12,742. Earlier in the session, the blue-chip index sank as low as 12,696 and ranged less than 90 points on the day.

The S&P 500 added about 2 points, or 0.14%, to close at 1345. From its near four-year high levels in early April through the beginning of June, the benchmark declined by nearly 10%, landing it on the threshold of a correction. Since then, it's reclaimed some ground and now sits roughly 5% below a high of 1422 on April 2.

The Nasdaq outperformed the other indices, advancing 22 points, or 0.78%, to close at 2895.

Within the Dow, 19 of the index's 30 components were moving lower, led by Alcoa (AA), Bank of America (BAC), General Electric (GE), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM).

Verizon (VZ), Kraft Foods (KFT), and Home Depot (HD) were among the bigger gainers on the Dow.

In the broad market, the energy, financials and conglomerates sectors were moving lower, while transportation, healthcare and services were areas of strength.

Official projections show that Greece's pro-bailout New Democracy party holding 29.7% of votes and 129 seats in the 300-member parliament, trumping the 26.9% of votes and 71 seats obtained by the leftist Syriza party. The New Democracy Party now faces the challenge of forming a viable coalition government.

Overnight, global markets staged a relief rally in reaction to the results, but soon lost steam.

The FTSE in London settled up 0.22% and the DAX in Germany closed higher by 0.3%, substantially trimming gains. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index closed higher by 1.01% and Japan's Nikkei Average settled up 1.77%.

"A temporary relief rally in the euro and risk assets does not mean that uncertainty has been eliminated," said HSBC analysts. "Antonis Samaras, the [pro-bailout] New Democracy leader, has said that he, too, wants to renegotiate some of the terms of the bail-out which means that a temporary halt to Troika funding cannot be ruled out. More immediately, New Democracy needs to form a coalition involving [center-left] Pasok, which has suggested forming a national unity government including [anti-bailout party]Syriza."

There are rumors that Pasok, the party that came in third place, won't form a coalition with New Democracy unless Syriza is involved, implying that there could be no government in Greece for a while.

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