Day Traders Diary

9/3/10

U.S. stocks opened with robust gains on Friday after the August employment report continued a recent trend of economic data coming in better than feared. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 108 points to 10,427. The S&P 500 climbed 12 points to 1,103. The Nasdaq Composite gained 29 points to 2,229. The economic data is not great, but it is improving once again. The employment stocks are performing well. Monster Worldwide is up 6% this morning. Everything is performing well once again. On the earnings front, Take-Two Interactive is jumping 11% following better than expected earnings. Chip company, Finisar is jumping 13% after easily beating estimates. Krispy Kreme and HR Block are also higher following earnings. Campbell Soup is down 3% following in line earnings. The techs and financials look good once again. Commodities continue to push higher. In the retail space, Talbots is up 2% on an upgrade. Walgreen is modestly higher on better than expected August sales. At 10 o'clock weaker than expected manufacturing numbers caused some profit-taking. After the first hour the Dow was only up 50 points. The Nasdaq up 14 points. Through the morning the averages moved sideways, actually improving into the lunch hour. That's a good sign. In the afternoon the averages reaccelerated to the upside. The Dow rose 100 points while the Nasdaq climbed 29 points. So far so good. In the last hour the averages held their gains. A good start to September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 127 points, or 1.2%, at 10,447. Blue-chip gains were led by a 2.7% gain in shares of JP Morgan Chase, up 2.7%, and Cisco Systems, up 2.5%. For the week, the blue-chip average rose 2.9%, ending a three-week losing streak. The S&P 500 index rose 14 points, or 1.3%, to end at 1,104 led by the financials sector, up 2.2%. The broad index rose 3.8% for the week, also posting a weekly gain for the first time in four weeks. The Nasdaq Composite rose 33 points, or 1.5%, to 2,233 for a weekly gain of 3.7%.

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