Day Traders Diary

2/2/10

U.S. stocks on Tuesday tilted mostly higher at the start ahead of data on the housing market and a plethura of earnings reports. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 5 points to 10,190. The S&P 500 Index rose a point to 1,090. The Nasdaq Composite Index inched up half a point to 2,171. The earnings keep flooding in. Cummins Engine, UPS, ADP, Hershey Foods, Lexmark, ADM, DR Horton, Dow Chemical, Whirlpool, Suncor, and Emerson Electronics all reported this morning. Emerson is up 8%, Lexmark is up 12%, DR Horton is up 10%, while Dow Chemical is down 2%. The financials are quiet ahead of Paul Volcker's speech to Congress regarding curbing the powers of the big banks. The credit card companies like American Express, Visa, Mastercard, Capital One, and Discover are all higher on upgrades. The techs are mixed this morning. Palm is up 3% on an upgrade. Oracle, Altera, and Intel are higher on upgrades. The big name techs like Google, Apple, and IBM opened
lower. In the retail space AnnTaylor is up 12% after raising guidance. Barnes & Noble is jumping 9% following news last night a private equity firm increased their stake in the firm. In the commodity space Alcoa and Freeport McMoRan are jumping thanks to upgrades at Citigroup. Exxon Mobil is up a percent on an upgrade and strong earnings yesterday. Suncor Energy is down 3% following earnings this morning. After the first hour the averages shot high. The Dow rose 65 points. The Nasdaq increased by 10 points. As the morning progressed the Dow remained strong thanks to the financials. The techs pulled back. In the afternoon the averages remained strong, pushing to new highs. The Dow rose 100 points. The Nasdaq rose 17 points. The financials are struggling thanks to harsh words from Volcker limiting the trading activities of the big banks. Moodys came out with threats to downgrade the U.S. debt and yet the market would not sell off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 111 points at 10,296. The S&P 500 Index rose 14 points to 1,103. The Nasdaq Composite Index climbed 18 points to 2,190.

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