Day Traders Diary

12/17/08

Stocks opened lower on Wednesday after the market's best day yet this month. Unfortunately, the exhilaration from yesterday is fading following more dismal earnings from the likes of Morgan Stanley. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 103 points to 8,820. The S&P 500 declined 10 points to 902, while the technology-laden Nasdaq Composite shed 19 points to 1,570. Morgan Stanley is down 5% after losing $2.3 billion. Most of the financials are lower. Deutsche Bank, American Express, and GE were downgraded. Deutsche Bank is down 9%. CIT Group is down 9% after the company laid out their much needed capital raise. BB&T is doing the unthinkable. They are raising their dividend. President-elect Obama's team is considering overhauling the TARP program. Deere is modestly higher after raising $2 billion through the FDIC approved loan program. The FDIC is for banks. Who knew John Deere was a bank? Crazy times. After the open the averages improved. The commodities are looking better. Goldman Sachs is in the green. The techs are mixed. Adobe is up 5% on better than expected earnings. Apple keeps moving lower, down 6% on another downgrade. Western Digital is cutting 2500 jobs. After the first hour the averages moved back to where they started with the Dow down over 100 points. The Nasdaq declined 22 points. Through the morning the averages remained weak. The commodities look good. During the lunch hour the averages slowly moved toward the unchanged level. After the lunch hour the averages actually moved into the green. Resilient market. Morgan Stanley opened lower, but now is up 9%. Nice turnaround. Macy's is up 17% after restructuring their credit facility with a number of banks. Entering the last hour the averages were back in the red and remained in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 99 points to 8,824. The S&P 500 dropped 8 points to 904, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 10 points to 1,579.

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