Day Traders Diary

2/27/09

The major averages sank on the open following a revised fourth quarter GDP to negative 6.2% and the government's plan to increase their stake in Citigroup to 36% diluting current shareholders. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 134 points to 7,047 which is a new 13 year low. The S&P 500 Index shed 17 points to 735, a 12 year low, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 18 points to 1,372, a seven year low. The financials are leading the weakness. Citigroup is down 26%. Investors fear more banks will succumb to the fate of Citigroup. Bank of America is down 12%. Blackstone is down 2% after reporting a $406 million loss. Some banks like JP Morgan are holding up well. The CEO Jamie Dimon believes his bank will hold up well under any stress test. After the first half an hour, the Nasdaq improved. IBM, Google, and Dell are higher. Dell missed sales estimates, but earnings beat due to cost cutting. In the retail sector, Deckers Outdoors is down 19% as their wildly popular Hugg shoes saw sales come back down to Earth. Kohls and Big 5 Sports are lower even though they beat by a penny. The healthcare sector has been walloped in the several days on concerns the government will cut spending on Medicare. Barclays and the Wall Street Journal wrote positive pieces on the sector, but it isn't helping much.

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