Day Traders Diary
9/23/11
U.S. stocks declined Friday with Wall Street on alert for indications policy makers would take additional steps to bolster the global economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 63 points to 10,670. The S&P 500 Index dropped 4 points to 1,125. The Nasdaq Composite declined 4 points to 2,451. The decline is not as bad as initially feared as a few buyers stepped. The financials are rallying even though a number of them had their estimates cut. Discover is up for a second straight day following strong earnings yesterday. Visa and MasterCard also look good. The chip space also looks good. Texas Instruments is up 2% following an upgrade. Xilinx, Rambus and Altera are higher on upgrades. Intel and Micron also look good this morning. Maxim was downgraded, yet the stock is higher. Elsewhere in tech, HP is making news firing their CEO of 11 months replacing him with Meg Whitman the former CEO of EBay. That stock is not rebounding down another percent at a six year low. The rest of the big cap techs look good. Through the first hour the averages improved led by the financials and techs. In the retail space, Finish Line and Nike are up over 5% following earnings last night. UBS upgraded a number of retailers including American Eagle. Under Armour is up 2% on an upgrade. Tiffany continues to perform well. McDonalds is higher after hiking their dividend last night. Christopher and Banks is one of the few retailers trading sharply lower following earnings. The commodities are still struggling. Mosaic is down 5% after preannouncing quarterly guidance. Agrium and Potash are lower as well. Through the morning the Dow rallied as much as 50 points before pulling back. The Nasdaq is up 22 points. The recent safe haven, gold continues to get hit down 4% today and down 10% from the highs back to where we started August. In the afternoon the Dow gave up its' gains while the Nasdaq remained in the green. A number of techs remain in the green including the chip stocks. The financials are also in the green which is another good sign. In the last hour all the major averages moved into the green to end a lousy week. The Dow average finished up 37 points at 10,771, recovering a sliver of the prior session's 391 point drop. For the week, the blue-chip index lost 6.4% as investors sought cash on slashed expectations that the Federal Reserve and European policy makers would be able to quickly stabilize the global economy. The S&P 500 rose 6 points to 1,136, led by consumer discretionary and financial sectors, but lost 6.5% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite gained 27 points, or 1.1%, to 2,483, losing 5.3% for week.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.