Day Traders Diary

7/17/09

U.S. stocks opened slightly lower on Friday, with the market digesting more gains from the previous session and parsing through key earnings from Bank of America, IBM, General Electric and Citigroup. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6 points to 8,705. Shares of Bank of America fell 0.7% after it posted a smaller-than-expected drop in quarterly earnings. Citigroup rose 2.6% after it posted an unexpected profit, but General Electric fell 3.8% after its quarterly revenues missed analysts' estimates. The S&P 500 index lost 2 points to 938, while the Nasdaq Composite dipped 3 points to 1,881. The techs are mixed. IBM is up 3% following stellar earnings last night while Google is lower by 3% even though they easily beat estimates. Google received three upgrades this morning, but it isn't helping. Rival, Yahoo is higher on an upgrade. Adobe is lower on a downgrade. After the first hour the averages remained range bound. So far a quiet day for option expiration. Other companies reporting earnings today include BB&T, First Horizon, Mattel, and First Niagara. Only BB&T and First Horizon are lower, both by 4%. Callaway is down 9% after lowering earnings this morning. After the first hour the averages drifted lower, but not by much. The volume and the volatility died down. In the afternoon, the averages nudged back into the green. No sell off. That's good. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 32 points at 8,743, receiving a boost from a 4% rise in the shares of IBM. The S&P 500 index dipped 30 cents to 940, while the Nasdaq Composite rose a point to 1,886. For the week, the Dow rose 7.3%, the S&P 500 gained 7% and the Nasdaq was up 7.4%. Not bad.

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