Day Traders Diary

1/21/11

U.S. stocks opened higher on Friday led by better than expected earnings from the likes of General Electric and Google. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 57 points to 11,880 thanks to a 5% jump in GE. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 7 points to 1,287. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 13 points to 2,717. The earnings keep coming in better than expected. In the tech space Google, Intuitive Surgical, Flextronics, and Maxim Integrated are all higher following earnings. Google is at a new recent high after receiving a couple of upgrades. Surprisingly, Apple is only modestly higher. Micron is up 2% on an upgrade. AMD is one of the few techs lower following earnings. In the financials space Capital One, GE, Suntrust, and BB&T are higher following earnings. PNC, Travelers, Banco Santander, and Banco Santander Brasil are higher on upgrades. Bank of America opened lower following earnings, but has since rebounded. The commodities are rebounding except for Freeport. Schlumberger is up 2% after beating earnings estimates and raising their dividend. After the first half an hour the Dow rose over 70 points to 11900, new highs for the year. The Nasdaq rose 17 points. Through the morning the averages slowly pulled back. A number of stocks that looked good earlier have pulled back including Schlumberger, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Freeport, and a number of techs. Apple fell into the red first followed by most of the blue chip techs. Google looked great earlier, but rumors of a lawsuit from Oracle caused that stock to give up all its gains. Through the afternoon the Dow held up thanks to GE which actually make a new 52 week high. The techs are sinking lower. Google looks worse, now down 2% and down 4% from this morning's highs. Not good. In the last hour the Dow held up while the Nasdaq sank lower. The Dow average finished up 49 points at 11,871, gaining 0.7% for the week, rallying for an eighth straight week. The S&P 500 ended up 3 points to 1,283, but lost 0.8% for the week, breaking a seven-week winning streak. The Nasdaq Composite lost 14 points to 2,689 and tumbled 2.4% for the week, its' first down week for the new year.

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