Day Traders Diary

11/10/15

The stock market ended Tuesday on a mixed note as the Nasdaq Composite (-0.2%) settled with a modest loss while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.2%) and S&P 500 (+0.2%) overcame the weakness in the technology sector (-0.7%), eking out slim gains.

Equities stumbled at the start of the trading day with the opening move paced by the largest stock in terms of market cap. Specifically, Apple (AAPL 116.73, -3.84) fell 3.2% in reaction to a Credit Suisse report, which indicated the tech giant has cut its orders for iPhone 6s components by as much as 10.0%. Shares of Apple slid below their 100-day moving average (117.33) after struggling with the 200-day average (122.06) over the past few days. Meanwhile, supplier names like CirrusLogic (CRUS 29.43, -2.78), Broadcom (BRCM 51.45, -1.74), AvagoTechnologies (AVGO 119.86, -6.64) lost between 3.3% and 8.6% while the PHLX Semiconductor Index fell 1.8%.

Apple's weakness kept the technology sector (-0.7%) deep in the red throughout the session, which in turn, weighed on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, six of the remaining nine sectors settled in the green. That included the health care sector (+1.0%), which gathered steam late in the day while biotechnology recovered from early weakness. The iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 331.96, +1.38) climbed 0.4% after being down more than 1.0% in the early going.

Elsewhere, influential sectors like consumer discretionary (+0.7%) and financials (+0.5%) held slim gains in morning action, but extended higher in the afternoon. Also of note, the energy sector (+0.2%) settled just above its flat line while crude oil rallied 0.8% to $44.21/bbl. Meanwhile, the other commodity-linked sector—materials (-0.7%)—spent the day at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Staying on the cyclical side, the industrial sector (unch) struggled throughout the day with transport stocks responsible for some of the weakness. However, the Dow Jones Transportation Average returned to unchanged by the end of the day. It is worth noting Norfolk Southern (NSC 88.57, -0.05) shed just 0.1% after surging 11.0% yesterday with today's downtick taking place after Canadian Pacific (CP 139.95, -2.23) denied interest in NSC.

Treasuries snapped their six-day skid with the 10-yr note settling near its high, dropping the benchmark yield three basis points to 2.32%.

Today's participation was just below average with about 820 million shares changing hands at the NYSE floor.

Economic data was limited to Import/Export Prices and Wholesale Inventories:

Export prices, excluding agriculture, decreased 0.3% in October after decreasing 0.5% (revised from -0.6%) in the prior reading

Excluding oil, import prices decreased 0.3%, which followed last month's decrease of 0.2% (revised from -0.3%)

Wholesale inventories increased 0.5% in September on top of an upwardly revised 0.3% increase (from 0.1%) for August

The Briefing.com consensus expected an increase of 0.1%

Wholesale sales increased 0.5% after declining 0.9% in August

The inventory-to-sales ratio held steady versus the prior month at 1.31, but is up from 1.20 in the same period a year ago

Investors will not receive any economic data tomorrow and the bond market will be closed for Veterans Day.

Nasdaq Composite +7.3% YTD

S&P 500 +1.1% YTD

Dow Jones Industrial Average -0.4% YTD

Russell 2000 -1.2% YTD