Day Traders Diary
1/22/10
U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday, extending losses into a third day, with concerns regarding the financials and the Chinese government making moves to cool its economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 20 points to 10,369. The S&P 500 Index fell a point to 1,114. The Nasdaq Composite declined 4 points to 2,260. At least two Dow components are performing well. GE and McDonalds are higher following better than expected earnings. The rest of the market, not so good. The financials are weak once again as investors still try to decipher what President Obama was getting at yesterday other than creating uncertainty which Wallstreet hates. JP Morgan, Charles Schwab, Fifth Third, Goldman Sachs, PNC Bank, Visa, and Mastercard were all upgraded, yet all are lower. SunTrust, Capital One, American Express, and BB&T beat earnings estimates yet all four are lower. Keycorp is down 3% on a downgrade. The techs are not much better. Google is down 4% on blow out earnings. AMD is down 11% on blow out earnings. Western Digital is down 6% on blow out earnings. I see a pattern. Even the mighty Apple is lower. Within the first hour the Dow fell 80 points before cutting the losses in half. The Nasdaq declined 28 points before cutting the losses in half. Here's the next thing to worry about. Congress need to reappoint Fed Chairman Bernanke next week and the vote looks pretty close as of now. Here we go again. Through the morning the averages remained weak. The commodities are lower once again. Freeport McMoRan is down again after getting clobbered yesterday. In the afternoon the averages pushed lower once again as President Obama got infront of a microphone once again. Entering the last hour the Dow dropped 120 points. The Nasdaq declined 39 points. In the last hour and into the close, the averages pushed lower as no one wants to be long over the weekend. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 216 points, or 2.1%, at 10,172. The blue-chip average fell 4.1% for the week, its worst weekly performance since February of 2009. The S&P 500 index lost 24 points, or 2.2%, to close at 1,091, leading to a weekly loss of 3.9%. Technology shares were hit by a series of downgrade in Friday's session. The Nasdaq Composite fell 60 points, or 2.7%, to close at 2,205. It fell 3.6% for the week.All comments contained herein are for informational purposes only, and should not be considered as a solicitation to buy or sell any security. The firm does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information or make any warranties regarding results from it's usage.