At the Halfway Point

The Fourth of July holiday not only provides a break for the markets but marks the halfway point of the year. So it makes sense to look back now at what's happened so far:

* The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 7.8 percent on the year. Its low point was on March 16, at 11,613, and peaked on the last day of April, at 12,810. It's now at 12,582.

* The S&P 500 isn't quite as strong, gaining 5.3 percent on the year. The Nasdaq is slightly under that, up 5.03 percent on the year. Both those markets' low and high points came on the same days as for the Dow.

* Treasury bond yields, by contrast, spent most of the first half of 2011 dropping. The yield for the 10-year bond peaked on February 8th, at 3.725 percent, and bottomed out on June 24th, at 2.87 percent, before rallying to its current level of just under 3.2 percent. All told, it's dropped 4.45 percent on the year.