Day Traders Diary

04/20/12

U.S. stocks began Friday with strong gains on better-than-expected quarterly results from corporations including General Electric and Microsoft. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 84 points to 13,048. The S&P 500 rose 7 points to 1,383. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 12 points to 3,020. One thing is for sure the earnings are coming in better than expected and surprisingly, the global weakness in Europe and Asia doesn't seem to be hurting guidance. The earnings winners so far this morning include GE, Microsoft, McDonalds, E- Tra de, Capital One, Honeywell, and Schlumberger. Microsoft is up nearly 5% this morning. Other stocks also trading higher following earnings include AMD, Dycom, Under Armour, Kimberly Clark, Johnson Controls, Ingersoll Rand, and Finish Line. A great week for earnings, however not all stocks are trading up on earnings. Tech stock, Riverbed is down 27% on earnings. TemperPedic is down 20% while Sandisk is down 12% on earnings or lack there of. Freescale, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Metlife, Altera, and Royal Caribbean are lower as well on earnings. Through the first hour the averages held on to their gains with the Nasdaq actually improving thanks to Microsoft, Google, and Apple. The financials are one sector not participating so far this morning pretty much unchanged. Through the morning the averages improved with the Dow rising over 100 points thanks to GE, Microsoft, and Verizon. The Nasdaq continues to perform even though Apple is unchanged. In the afternoon the Nasdaq game up most of it's gains thanks to a selloff in Apple. Many techs have given up their gains along with the financials. The rest of the sectors are holding in there. In the last hour Apple, Google, and the Nasdaq pushed lower. The Dow gave half their gains due to the financials. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 65 points at 13,029, leaving it 1.4% ahead from the week-ago close. The S&P 500 added a point to 1,378, up 0.6% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite fell 7 points to 3,000, off 0.4% for the week, its third consecutive weekly slide.

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