Day Traders Diary
03/14/2012
U.S. stocks began modestly higher Wednesday following a crazy Tuesday as the major averages had their best day of the year closing at new highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 15 points to 13,193. The S&P 500 opened unchanged at 1,395. The Nasdaq Composite rose 3 points to 3,042. The financials led a spectacular rally yesterday following better than expected results from the Federal Reserves' stress-tests. As a result JP Morgan and the blue chip banks hiked their dividends and issued more share buybacks. However many of the financials are modestly lower. American Express is up 3% on an upgrade. Citigroup and Metlife are lower after failing part of the stress test. Another day and another upgrade or two for Apple. The stock is up another 2.5% today to a new all time high. The stock is up nearly 50% for the year. Wow. The other techs are higher as well. IBM is at a new all time high. LSI Logic is up 3% after raising guidance. Micron and Altera are higher on upgrades. EMC and Juniper are two techs trading lower on downgrades. Through the morning the averages gave up most of their gains. Apple still remains strong along with plenty of blue chip techs although the Nasdaq fell into the red. A number of financials are in the red which isn't a surprise on a big run up. The weakest sector is utilties. Gold is down nearly 3% and the materials are also selling off. In the afternoon the Dow rallied as much as 43 points while the Nasdaq rose 13 points before pulling back. The utilities, materials, energy, industrials, and transports are all in the red. Apple rose as much as 26 points or 4.5% before pulling back. This might be the top for Apple although I've said that before. In the last hour the averages were able to pull off gains even though stocks declining dwarfed the number of advancing stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up16 points at 13,194. The Nasdaq Composite edged up 85 cents to 3,040. The S&P 500 lost a point to end at 1,394All 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.