Day Traders Diary

11/21-11/25

European markets are not getting any better as Italian and Spanish debt yields rise further following a discouraging Italian auction where the Italian 10-year yield rose to 7.28% after the country paid a record 6.5% in a 10 billion euro 6-month bond auction today. Our markets opened lower Friday, but quickly turned positive as investors hoped U.S. consumers would carry the day that kicks off holiday shopping and put concerns about the euro zone on the backburner. The Dow Industrials gained 48 points to trade at 11,303. The S&P 500 rose 6 points to 1,168. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 11 points to trade at 2,471. It's a broad based rally here for the major averages as investors breathe a sigh of relief. The analyst community must be in the malls shopping away because the news front is quiet. At least the sellers are taking the day off as well. The big retail box stores are performing well. Best Buy which analysts say has among the best so-called Black Friday specials, rose 1.3% this morning. Wal-Mart Stores is up 0.9%. Sears Holdings rose 1% after getting clobbered the last couple of weeks. Staples inched up 0.3%. Macy's and Kohl's are also higher. Through the first hour the Dow rose 100 points dragging the Nasdaq up 16 points. The financials are the lead sector for once. Through the morning the rally fizzled as more and more stocks dropped back into the red. One of the weakest sectors is the energy space. Techs also are succumbing to profit-taking along with the material stocks. During the lunch hour or the last hour as it is today the averages gravitated back to the unchanged level falling into the red by the close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 25 points at 11,231, down 4.8% for the week. The S&P 500 shed 3 points, or 0.3%, to end at 1,158, losing 4.7% for the week. And the Nasdaq Composite lost 18 points, or 0.8%, to close at 2,441 down 5.1% from a week ago. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes marked their seventh losing session in a row. It was also the worse trading week of Thanksgiving since 1932. Not a good headline.

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