Day Traders Diary

8/28/09

U.S. stocks opened higher on Friday, with information technology shares fronting the gains after better-than-anticipated earnings from Dell and raised guidance at Intel. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 25 points to 9,606. The S&P 500 Index climbed 6 points to 1,037, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 28 points to 2,056. Intel is up 4% and Dell is up 6%. The good news from the two tech titans is lifting the whole sector. Microsoft is up 2.5%. Marvell Tech is up 6% on earnings. Corning is modestly higher on good industry data for LCD sales. More earnings from the retail sector. J. Crew is jumping 6% after beating estimates and receiving an upgrade. Tiffanys is up 7% after beating estimates and raising guidance. William Sonoma is up 4% on an upgrade. After the first half an hour, the rally fizzled. The Dow fell into the red. The Nasdaq gave up half its gains. The fertilizer stocks are lower following downgrades at UBS. PetroChina is modestly lower as profits declined year over year. The financials are holding firm. Citigroup is up 6%. AIG is up 13% today and up over 100% in the last month. Through the morning the averages moved sideways with the Dow modestly in the red and the techs and Nasdaq holding in the green. In the afternoon, more of the same. The financials and techs are holding firm at the unchanged level or modestly in the green. In the last hour, the averages slowly improved. Resilient. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 36 points at 9,544, up 0.4% from the week-ago close. Prior to Friday's close, the blue-chip index closed higher for eight sessions in a row. The S&P 500 Index slipped 2 points to 1,028, leaving the broad market gauge up 0.3% for the week. The technology-laden Nasdaq Composite added a point to rest at 2,028, leaving it with a weekly gain of 0.4%.

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