Day Traders Diary

1/18/11

U.S. stocks on Tuesday opened in a shaky manner as earnings from banking giant Citigroup further rattled investors already unsettled by concerns over Apple's CEO stepping down for health reasons. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 20 points to 11,808. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index opened flat at 1,293. The Nasdaq Composite fell a point to 2,753. Apple is down 4%, but it could've been worse. Google is up on Apple's weakness. Google also received a couple of upgrades. Yahoo is lower on a downgrade. In the financial space, Citigroup is down 5% dragging all the big banks lower. Goldman Sachs is down a percent after shunning American clients regarding the Facebook investment. AllianceBerstein and Janus are lower on downgrades. Charles Schwab is modestly lower on in line earnings. TD Ameritade is modestly higher following earnings. Comerica is making news, buying out Sterling Bancshares for a billion dollars. Sterling is jumping 16% while Comerica is down 8%. The commodities all opened higher except for McMoran Exploration down 6% following earnings. Not to be confused, Freeport McMoRan looks good this morning. Steelmaker, Nucor is higher on an upgrade. After the first hour the Dow actually improved thanks to strength in Boeing and Caterpillar. The Nasdaq is still struggling thanks in large part to Apple. The airlines are under pressure this morning after Delta and Jetblue reported disappointing earnings due in part to the higher gas prices and bad weather. Through the morning the Dow remained strong. The Nasdaq improved as Apple improved. Everyone on TV is recommending Apple. The financials remain under pressure. In the afternoon the averages moved sideways, pulling back a little bit in the last hour. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 50 points at 11,837. Blue-chip gains were led by a 3.4% advance in shares of Boeing after the firm said it expects to deliver its new 787 jet in the third quarter. The S&P 500 index gained 1.78 points to 1,295, led by the energy and materials sectors. The Nasdaq Composite rose 10 points to 2,765.

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