Day Traders Diary

7/16/10

U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday after Bank of America, Citigroup, and General Electric reported revenue below what Wall Street expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 57 points to 10,302. The S&P 500 Index dropped 8 points to 1,088. The Nasdaq Composite shed 14 points to 2,234. GE, Citi, and Bank of America are all down over 3% dragging the markets with it. JP Morgan is lower even though it was upgraded. Only a few financials are higher including Charles Schwab up 5% after beating estimates and Goldman Sachs up 3% after settling with the SEC. Things are not much better in the tech sector. Google is down 5% following earnings. Sony and Ericsson are both down over 3% following earnings. In the retail space, Mattel is down 5% even though profits doubled. Walmart is lower after an analyst cut numbers. Pepsi is modestly higher after raising their dividend. Just before 10 o'clock a second bad economic number in as many days sent the averages lower again. The Dow dropped a quick 100 points as the Michigan consumer sentiment number came in well below estimates. After the first half an hour the Dow fell 150 points. The Nasdaq declined 35 points. Through the morning the averages pushed lower with the Dow falling nearly 200 points. Nothing is bouncing. In the afternoon the averages pushed lower. The Dow fell over 230 points. The Nasdaq declined 60 points. The weak economic data has investors in no mood to buy this market. In the last hour the Dow fell 250 points, but luckily did not sell off much more. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 261 points, or 2.5%, at 10,097, led by a 9.2% drop in the shares of Bank of America. It was the worst day for the Dow since June 29. The S&P 500 ended down 31 points, or 2.9%, at 1,064, led by a 4.4% drop in financial stocks. The Nasdaq Composite sank 70 points, or 3.1%, to 2,179. For the week, the Dow lost 1%, the S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite sank 0.8%.

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