Day Traders Diary
6/28/13
Stocks concluded their down week on a lower note as the S&P 500 shed 0.4%.Equities slipped out of the gate amid weakness in Treasuries. The 10-yr note sold off into the cash session open before erasing most of its losses. The benchmark 10-yr yield ended higher by two basis points at 2.493%.
A disappointing Chicago PMI report for June (51.6 actual, 55.5 Briefing.com consensus, 58.7 prior) also contributed to the early weakness, but stocks were able to find support shortly thereafter.
Today's session lows coincided with the release of a better-than-expected final University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (84.1 final, 82.7 consensus, 82.7 preliminary).
Stocks spent the following hour in a steady climb, allowing the S&P to erase its opening losses. However, the early buying interest fizzled out after the benchmark average returned to its flat line, where it held until the closing minutes of the session.
The final five minutes of action saw the index return into the red as the small cap Russell 2000 index underwent its annual rebalancing.
The S&P was anchored to its unchanged level for most of the afternoon as financials and technology weighed. The financial sector ended with a loss of 0.7% while the tech space shed 0.4%.
While the tech sector was able to settle above its lows, not all components were as fortunate. Accenture (ACN 71.96, -8.26) tumbled 10.3% after its earnings beat was overshadowed by below-consensus revenue as well as downside fourth quarter revenue guidance. Separately, BlackBerry (BBRY 10.46, -4.02) plunged 27.8% after the company reported disappointing first quarter earnings and revenue. In addition, BB10 shipments of 2.7 million disappointed as investors expected BlackBerry to ship about 3.5 million units of its latest device.
On the flip side, discretionary shares and utilities ended in positive territory. The discretionary sector received a boost from retailers after Finish Line (FINL 21.86, +0.66) surprised to the upside with its earnings and revenue. Meanwhile, homebuilders kept the discretionary space from logging further gains. Most major builders settled in the red while the iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction ETF (ITB 22.38, -0.37) shed 1.6%.
Also of note, a 0.4% advance in utilities extended the sector's weekly gain to 3.0%, placing it atop this week's leaderboard. Meanwhile, the materials sector was the weakest group of the week, ending with a loss of 1.5%. However, gold miners had a strong showing today as the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 24.49, +1.70) surged 7.5%. On a related note, gold futures gained 1.6% to $1230.70 per ounce while silver futures jumped 5.6% to $19.60 per ounce.
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