Day Traders Diary

1/5/10

U.S. stocks opened mildly lower on Tuesday, with investors stepping back after the prior day's rally and ahead of economic data that includes reports on factory orders and pending home sales. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 26 points to 10,556. The S&P 500 Index declined a point to 1131. The Nasdaq Composite Index shed 5 points to 2,303. The averages are a little weaker, but the analyst community is bullish. In the tech sector Research in Motion, Palm, Qualcomm, Apple, Corning, Western Digital, Motorola, Dell, LSI, Nvidia, and Microsoft were all upgraded. Corning and Qualcomm were upgraded by two analysts. Corning is at a new high. Qualcomm, Palm, Research in Motion, Apple, Motorola, Dell, and Microsoft are higher. Apple leaked news their Apple tablet will be released in March. Google is expected to debut their cellphone day. The stock is modestly lower. The financials are modestly higher. Goldman and Morgan Stanley are higher even though they had their quarterly estimates cut. Charles Schwab is lower on a downgrade while Capital One is higher on an upgrade. After the first half an hour the averages pushed lower on weak housing data. The Dow dropped 50 points. The Nasdaq declined 10 points. In the commodity space the fertilizers are shooting higher thanks to a couple of upgrades. Chesapeake Energy continues to perform well after agreeing to sell a stake in a shale natural gas business yesterday. Through the morning and into the lunch hour the Dow remained in the red. The financials are performing well. Many of the commodities are performing well. The big techs are quiet or slightly lower. In the afternoon, Ford jumped 8% on strong December sales. Google moved lower after the released of their new Nexus phone. Most of the big cap techs are pulling back. In the last hour the averages started to recover led in part by the financials. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 11 points at 10,572. The S&P 500 Index added 3 points to 1,136. The Nasdaq Composite Index inched up 29 cents to 2,308.

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