Day Traders Diary

5/21/12

U.S. stocks started mildly higher on Monday, with Wall Street attempting to bounce back from the worst week of the year. The Dow industrials rose 40 points to 12,409. The S&P 500 Index added 5 points to 1,300. The Nasdaq Composite rose 11 points to 2,790. The broader market looks good except for Facebook. Facebook opened down 10% well below the IPO price of $38 a share. The other techs are performing much better. Facebook's loss is Apple's gain. Apple is trading up 3% this morning. Google also looks good. Yahoo is modestly higher after agreeing to sell half their stake in Alibaba.com. The three weakest sectors of late energy, industrials, and materials all look great today. Hess and Newmont Mining are higher by 2% on positive Barron's articles. The diamond of the day is Cooper Industries jumping 26% after agreeing to be bought out by Eaton for $11.8 billion. Boeing is higher by 2% on an upgrade. Caterpillar is higher by 3%. The financials are performing well outside JP Morgan. JP Morgan is lower by 2% after announcing they will halt their share buyback, but maintain the dividend. My, how the mighty have fallen. Goldman Sachs is higher on an upgrade. In the retail space, Lowes is down 9% following better than expected earnings, but weak guidance. TJX and Best Buy are lower on downgrades while American Eagle is jumping 10% after cleaning house, dropping their 77kids stores. Through the first hour the averages remained strong up 50 points in the Dow while the Nasdaq rallied 25 points thanks to Apple. Through the morning the averages pushed higher with the Dow jumping 100 points and the Nasdaq improving by 36 points. The defensive utility space is weak. It's a risk on day.

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