The market works back from an opening-bell selloff

With stocks and most commodities in retreat mode since the S&P 500 hit a 2011 high on April 29, ?the cumulative effect of having stocks fall eight of the 12 days since then has begun to infect investor sentiment.

On Tuesday, the market showed a little more fight than in recent days, but complacency (at best) has become the prominent theme.

The S&P 500 dropped less than a half-point to 1329, while the Nasdaq gained a point to 2783. Those relatively flattish results were more representative of the market than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell 69 points, due largely to the selloff in shares of component (The market works back from an opening-bell selloff)Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), which dropped?more than 7%?after its earnings report late Monday that included a weak forecast.

Volatility still reigned, as a strong dollar and some work European economic data had set U.S. stocks up for an opening-bell selloff, and at one point the S&P 500 dipped below 1320 for the first time since April 20, while oil, gold and silver all started lower.

However, like everything else market-related these days, swings in either direction are prone to do exactly the opposite, and the dollar’s sharp rally took a break, helping commodities recoup their losses.

Not entirely, however — oil, which had dropped as low as $95.02 a barrel, still settled under $97 a barrel, a drop of 0.5%, while gold and silver fell 0.7% and 1.6%, respectively.

While stocks continue to largely be at the mercy of the dollar-commodities complex, the corporate and economic data weren’t particularly inspiring, including dour notes on housing starts, building permits, and a tepid report from (The market works back from an opening-bell selloff)Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) (following one a day earlier from Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW) working as a pesky reminder that the housing market doesn’t seem to offer any short-term sanguinity.

Similarly, the action in bonds, which saw the 10-ye! ar note& #8217;s yield drop to 3.12% (extremely close to its 200-day average), doesn’t exactly dovetail with an optimistic take on what investors expect to gain elsewhere.

On the other hand, stocks did show some fight on an above-average day in trading volume and large-cap financials showed strength, outperforming the market on back-to-back days — a good sign for the bulls.

Given stocks have dropped 2% in a week, a flat-line finish certa