Gainers led laggers 18-to-12 and Orbital Sciences (NYSE: ORB) recorded the largest increase at 6 percent after the company announced a 5-percent revenue jump for its third fiscal quarter.
That percentage change was in line with those of the other three major stock indices as the Dow recorded a 0.26-percent decline, the S&P 500 was up 0.26 percent and the NASDAQ had a 0.20-percent jump.
Investors responded to some positive earnings reports from some large companies and data that shows U.S. industrial production rose during September.
The Executive Mosaic GovConIndex is a composite index that tracks 30 of the largest publicly-traded Government Contracting (GovCon) Companies.