Day Traders Diary

10/11/11

U.S. stocks opened lower Tuesday, retreating after the prior day's rally, ahead of a vote in Slovakia on increasing the size and abilities of Europe's bailout fund. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 38 points to 11,394. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index declined 6 points to 1,188. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 9 points to 2,556. The averages opened lower following a phenomenal week with the Nasdaq up 12% and the Dow up a 1000 points, however, the selling is light today. Through the first hour the averages rebounded thanks to the techs and commodity space. Apple looks good. Google, Broadcom, SAP, and Arm Holdings are higher on upgrades. Intel also looks good. IBM was upgraded, but the stock is modestly lower after hitting an all time high yesterday. Texas Instruments and Nvidia are modestly lower after having their estimates cut. In the commodity space, Valero is jumping 3% on an upgrade. The fertilizers look good on positive comments. Alco is up 2% ahead of earnings tonight. The financials opened lower, but battled back. Citigroup is up 3% even though Goldman cut their earnings estimates for the firm. Goldman also had their estimates cut, but the stock is higher. Bank of America is higher as well. Paychex is modestly higher after raising their dividend. The insurance stocks are higher as well. Through the morning the averages moved into the green. In the afternoon the Dow vacillated around the unchanged level while the Nasdaq remained solidly in the green thanks to the techs. A mid-afternoon sell off brought the buyers back in the last hour. The markets are acting resilient. That's a good sign. Into the close the averages gave up some of their gains. The Dow average finished down 16 points at 11,416, led by a 1.4% loss in AT&T. The S&P 500 ended up 65 cents at 1,195, led by tech stocks. The Nasdaq Composite rose 16 points to 2,583.

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