Day Traders Diary
3/24/09
Profit-taking to start the day with bank shares retreating following Wall Street's largest rally in five months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 74 points, or 1%, to 7,701. Disney is down 2% on a downgrade. The S&P 500 Index shed 9 points to 813. The Nasdaq Composite fell 19 points, or 1.3%, to 1,536. Virtually all the financials are lower. Bank of America is down 6% as more executives are leaving following the Merrill merger. Credit Suisse is down 6% even though they implied the company is off to a strong start in 2009. Duetsche Bank is down 3% even though the firm says they don't need more capital. Rumors are circling that JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs want to give back their TARP money. The tech stocks are acting much better. The Nasdaq is only down 1% for the year. Sycamore Networks, Texas Instruments, Dell, and Nvidia were all upgraded. Only Dell is modestly higher. The retail sector continues to perform well. Willam Sonoma is up 7% after beating estimates by 15 cents. Carnival is up 6% after beating estimates by 14 cents. International Paper is up 2% on an upgrade. Under Armour is down 7% following a second downgrade in as many days. After the first hour, the averages remained weak, but off the lows. Through the morning the averages slowly improved. Many of the financials are improving with GE, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley in the green. In the afternoon, the averages slowly moved back to the unchanged, momentarily sneaking into the green, before pulling back again. The techs and a number of financials are in the green, but not by much. Entering the last hour, the averages were back toward the lows and unfortunately pushed lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 115 points, or 1.5%, at 7,660. The S&P 500 Index shed 16 points, or 2%, to stand at 806, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 37 points, or 2.4%, closing at 1,518.All comments contained herein are for informational purposes only, and should not be considered as a solicitation to buy or sell any security. The firm does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information or make any warranties regarding results from it's usage.