Day Traders Diary

8/22/12

U.S. stocks began moderately lower Wednesday, extending losses into a second session after a run that had the indexes at multi-year highs. "We're pushing up at levels now where a bit of a pullback is in our near future, the question is how severe," said Andrew Fitzpatrick, director of investments at Hinsdale Associates Inc. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 26 points to 13,177. The S&P 500 index shed 4 points to 1,408. The Nasdaq Composite declined 10 points to 3,056. The earnings keep coming in with mixed results. Dell is down 5% due to lackluster numbers. HP is lower in sympathy ahead of their earnings tonight. Analog Devices and Intuit are lower on earnings. Apple and Google, however, keep pushing higher. Apple was upgraded with a $750 price target. In the retail space, William Sonoma is higher by 8% on earnings. American Eagle is jumping 7% on earnings. Chicos is higher by 6% on earnings. Express is getting hit down 11% on earnings. Best Buy is lower on a downgrade. The material space is looking good this morning following earnings from BHP Billiton overnight. The financials are under pressure even though the housing sector looks good. Toll Brothers is higher by 3% at a new high thanks to better than expected earnings. Toll Brothers' stock has doubled in the last year. Fifth Third is one of the few banks bucking the trend on a share buyback plan and a possible dividend hike. In the first hour and through the morning the averages remained under pressure. Many investors are awaiting the Fed minutes out this afternoon. In the afternoon the Fed gave the markets what they wanted with hints of another rate cut. The Dow pared its' losses while the Nasdaq eventually moved into the green thanks to Google and Apple. The averages kept slowly improving until the last hour when the Dow drifted lower once again. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 30 points at 13,172. The S&P 500 index finished unchanged at 1,413. The Nasdaq Composite rose 6 points to 3,073.

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