Day Traders Diary

4/13/10

U.S. stocks opened lower on Tuesday for the first day in four after aluminum giant Alcoa reported results short of Wall Street's expectations. Back under 11,000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 18 points to 10,987. The S&P 500 Index shed 2 points to 1,193. The Nasdaq Composite declined 3 points to 2,454. Alcoa has started the earnings season and Intel will keep it going today. Intel is modestly higher ahead of their numbers tonight as a couple analysts make positive comments. After the open, the techs were the first sector to rebound. Besides Intel, Google, Apple, Ciena, Western Digital, Seagate, Cisco, Juniper, Research in Motion, and Red Hat were all upgraded. I guess the techs are going to have a good quarter. The big question is how much has been priced into the market? The retail sector continues to perform well. Talbots is jumping 7% following earnings. Crocs and DSW are higher following upgrades. One sector getting hit this morning are the regional banks. UBS downgraded a number of the regionals including Huntington Bancshares, KeyCorp, and Regions Financial. All are lower. The big banks are faring much better. JP Morgan is modestly higher ahead of earnings tomorrow. After the first half an hour the averages remain in the red, but a number of techs and a select number of financials are in the green. Through the morning the averages sold back off along with the commodities. The US dollar is improving. Through the morning into the afternoon the averages slowly improved, moving into the green led by the techs. Google, Intel, and Research in Motion are performing well. Intel is at a new high anticipating good earnings news after the close. In the last hour the averages once again clung to gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 13 points at 11,019. The S&P 500 Index rose nearly a point to 1,197, while the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 8 points to 2,465.

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