Day Traders Diary

2/17/09

U.S. stocks sank at Tuesday's start, with Wall Street tracking earlier action in Asia and Europe as investors around the globe see economic activity rapidly deteriorating. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 183 points to 7,667. Walmart is the lone component trading higher after beating estimates. The S&P 500 declined 24 points to 802. The Nasdaq Composite shed 43 points to 1,491. Look out below. The averages quickly pushed lower led by the financials. President Obama is expected to sign the stimulus bill into law today, but Wallstreet is losing faith in the new administration and the new Treasury Secretary. Nothing really looks good other than gold which is up 2.7%. In the tech sector, Google and Baidu are both lower by 4% due to downgrades. Transocean and Daimler are both down 6% on earnings. HP, Dreamworks, and Corning were upgraded, but all three are lower. Trump Entertainment is down 44% after filing for Chapter 11. Sirius Satellite is higher after Liberty Media stepped in to prevent a Chapter 11. The diamond of the day goes to Medtronic, up 6%, on better than expected earnings. After the first half an hour, the Dow was down 250 points. The Nasdaq declined 50 points. Through the morning and into the afternoon, the averages remained weak. The Dow is within 150 points of the November lows. The S&P 500 is below 800 for the first time since November. Nothing looks good. In the last hour, the President signed into law the stimulus bill which did caused a small bounce. But the bounced was ephemeral. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished near the lows of the day down 297 points at 7,552.60 holding just above the November 20th close of 7,552.29. The S&P 500 dropped 37 points, or 4.6%, to 789 while the Nasdaq Composite fell 63 points, or 4.2%, to 1,470.

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