Day Traders Diary

5/2/11

U.S. stocks opened higher on Monday as Wall Street cheered news that U.S. forces had killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 49 points to 12,859. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 4 points to 1,367. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 7 points to 2,880. Merger Monday continues. Arch Coal is buying ICG for $3.4 billion. Teva Pharmaceuticals made an offer to buy Cephalon and Volcom received a takeover offer from a private equity firm. ICG is jumping 30%, Volcom is up 24%, and Teva and Cephalon are higher by more than 3%. The earnings keep coming in. Dish Networks is jumping 24% following earnings. Old National Bancorp is up 3% following earnings. The financials in general are trading higher this morning. Goldman Sachs looks good. CAN Financial and Loews are lower following earnings. Trex, Moog, and Edison are lower after reporting earnings. The commodities in general opened lower. Silver plunged 10% overnight. The US dollar is rallying on the news of bin Laden's death. Through the first hour the averages pulled back due to some profit-taking. Sell in May and go away is all you hear on CNBC. Following the first hour the commodities and the major averages rebounded. Alcoa and Occidental Petroleum are higher on upgrades. Within the Dow, IBM is trading up 1.6% to new highs. Can't keep that stock down. Through the morning the averages remain in the green. The techs seem to be the only sector struggling. Google, Apple, Intel, and Microsoft are lower. Research in Motion reiterated earnings of $7.50 a share for next year, a full one dollar above consensus estimates, but the stock is not reacting. That's an awful sign. In the afternoon the rally started to fizzle, falling into the red and accelerating in the last hour only to rebound into the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 3 points at 12,807, marking its first down day in five sessions. Shares of Chevron were among the bigger decliners, down 1.2%. The S&P 500 fell 2 points to end at 1,361 while the Nasdaq dipped 9 points to closed at 2,864.

All comments contained herein are for informational purposes only, and should not be considered as a solicitation to buy or sell any security. The firm does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information or make any warranties regarding results from it's usage.