Day Traders Diary

6/25/19

The major averages sold off with the S&P 500 falling nearly a percent led by a sharp decline in tech, after comments from top Federal Reserve officials cooled investor optimism around a potential rate cut in July. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 179 points, notching its biggest one-day loss for June. The S&P 500 lost 0.95% while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.5%. In the tech space, Microsoft shares lost more than 3% after an analyst at Jefferies raised worries over the company's cloud service, Azure, and its success relative to rival Amazon Web Services. Adobe, Autodesk and Lam Research also closed down at least 3%.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is assessing whether current economic uncertainties call for lower rates. Powell noted the Fed will take a wait-and-see approach given how rapid recent economic changes have been. The central bank also believes U.S. inflation will return to 2%, albeit at a slower pace than expected.

Ten of the 11 S&P 500 sectors finished lower, led by the mega-cap stocks within the information technology (-1.8%), communication services (-1.6%), and consumer discretionary (-1.1%) sectors.

In M&A news, AbbVie (ABBV) announced it will acquire Allergan (AGN) for about $63 billion, or $188.24 per share, in cash and stock. With shares of AbbVie losing over 16%, the premium was reduced to 37% over AGN's closing price on Monday.