Day Traders Diary
5/11/12
U.S. stocks opened lower Friday, with large banks leading the losses after J.P. Morgan Chase reported a $2 billion trading loss. The bank's CEO, Jamie Dimon, called the losses "self inflicted" in revealing them late Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 67 points to 12,787, with J.P. Morgan shares off 9.3%. The S&P 500 Index shed 7 points to 1,350. The Nasdaq Composite declined 8 points to 2,925. Finally, investors were getting comfortable with the banks and this black eye comes out of nowhere. All the financials are lower this morning. Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are lower 4% each. Bond insurers, Assured Guaranty and MBIA are lower by 2% following earnings. As usual, energy and materials are lower once again. Chesapeake Energy is down 3% on more liability disclosures. Rare earth company, Molycorp is down 2% following disappointing earnings. After the open, the averages put in a good rebound lead by the techs. Intel is higher following a positive analyst meeting yesterday. Nvidia is jumping 9% on better than expected earnings. IBM and Microsoft also look good. Apple and Google are bringing up the rear. The dog of the day goes Sony down 8% following earnings. Things are mixed once again in the retail space. Dillards is jumping 7% on earnings. Bed Bath & Beyond is higher by 3% on earnings while Nordstrom is down 3% on earnings. Best Buy is lower following a downgrade this morning. Through the first hour the averages recovered all their losses. After the first hour the Nasdaq jumped 20 points while the Dow rose 20 points as well. Two of the best performing Dow components this morning are Verizon and AT&T thanks to upgrades. Resilient market. Through the morning the averages kept improving with the Dow rallying 50 points and the Nasdaq remaining up 20 points. Google and Apple are still not participating in the rally. Arena Pharm is the diamond of the day opening up 100% after the FDA Panel votes 18-4 to appove their weight loss drug, lorcaserin. In the afternoon the rally fizzled a little bit as the Dow fell back to the unchanged level. The Nasdaq held on to gains even as Google and Apple fell back into the red. In the last hour the averages pulled back further to end another down week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 34 points at 12,820, off 1.7% from the week-ago close. The S&P 500 retreated 4 points to 1,353, down 1.2% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite managed a fractional gain to close at 2,933, down 0.8% from last Friday's finish.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.