Day Traders Diary

01/24/12

U.S. stocks started lower on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 on the retreat after five days of gains, as talks to resolve Greece's debt-swap issues floundered. "It's still Greece, and really that hasn't gone away at all," said Paul Nolte, managing director at Dearborn Partners in Chicago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 66 points to 12,642. The S&P 500 declined 8 points to 1,307. The Nasdaq Composite shed 15 points to 2,768. Weakness in Europe is causing weakness in the financials. Regions Financial, Zion Bancorp, NBT Bancorp, and Travelers are lower following earnings. Keycorp is higher on in-line results. In the energy space, Peabody is down 6% after missing estimates. AK Steel is down 2% on earnings. Dupont is unchanged on earnings. Potash is lower on a downgrade. The tech space is showing a little life. VMware is jumping 7% on earnings. VMware's parent company, EMC is up 6% on earnings as well. Western Digital is up 6% on earnings while Volterra Semi and OSI Systems are also higher on earnings. Lam Research and Apple are higher on upgrades. Texas Instruments is one of the few techs lower following earnings. In the retail space Coach and Harley Davidson look good following earnings. Walmart and Home Depot are not reacting to upgrades. McDonalds is lower following earnings. Through the first hour the averages initially pushed lower only to recover a lot of the weakness with the techs in the lead. The Dow remains in the red led by weakness in Verizon and J&J following earnings. Kimberly Clark, CSX, and Brinker are also lower following earnings. Through the morning and into the afternoon the averages slowly recovered with the Nasdaq moving into the green. The Dow improved thanks to more and more banks moving into the green. A good sign. In the last hour the Nasdaq held on to modest gains while the Dow could not make it back to the unchanged level. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 33 points to 12,675. The S&P 500 fell a point to 1,314. The Nasdaq Composite added 2 points to 2,786.

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.