Day Traders Diary

5/13/11

Today is Triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13 particularly on Fridays. U.S. stocks wobble at the start after a report showing the cost of living climbed in April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 4 points to 12,687. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell nearly a point to 1,347. The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 7 points to 2,855. Earnings keep coming in, but the stocks are no longer rallying on the news. Nvidia, CA Tech, Sunpower, and Nordstrom are lower following earnings. Norstrom is lower, but the rest of the retail sector looks good. Dean Foods is jumping 9% on an upgrade. Dillard is up 13% after easily beating estimates. Foot Locker and AnnTaylor are also higher thanks to upgrades. The techs and financials are showing no life. Nvidia is down 8% following earnings, dragging most chip stocks lower. Cypress Semi is one of the few trading higher after initiating a dividend. Agilent Tech is up 9% after beating estimates. After the first half an hour the averages pushed lower, but volume is light. Lackluster morning. Through the morning the averages recovered led by a less than one percent rally in the commodities. However, heading into the lunch hour the averages took another hit led by weakness in techs. During the lunch hour the averages took another dive on news Osama Bin Laden wanted to kill President Obama. A terrorist wanted to kill our president, like that's news. In the afternoon the averages remained weak, but off the lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 100 points at 12,595. The S&P 500 Index shed nearly 11 points to 1,337 while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell more than 34 points, or 1.2%, to close at 2,828. For the week, the Dow declined 0.3%, the S&P gave up just 0.2%, and the Nasdaq gained a point.

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