THE FINAL NUMBERS – “THE CURSE OF BLACK MONDAY”

NEWS: The ghost of Black Monday showed up today in the form of a bear and reminded investors that stocks never go straight up. The Dow lost 366 points or 2.6%, its worst drop since 8/9. The S&P 500 cascaded down 39 points or 2.6% and the NASDAQ dropped 74 points or 2.7%. Taking an even bigger hit was the small-cap stocks; the Russell 2000 lost 3.2% and closed below the 50-day moving average for the first time since mid-September.

THE BOTTOMLINE: One of the worst days of the year for the markets as a fierce combination of subpar earnings, cautious fourth quarter guidance, continued credit fears, overbought technical conditions, options expiration, and profit-taking all collided. We had been calling for a pullback in October and I guess our wishes came true this week. The S&P 500 lost 3 ... Read More »

THE FINAL NUMBERS

NEWS: The market closed mixed again with the NASDAQ leading the major indices. The tech-heavy index closed up 6 points or 0.25% to close near the high of the session. The Dow lost 3 points and extended its losing streak to 4 days and 6 out of 7. The S&P 500 gave back 1 point on the day after being down as much as 10 points.

THE BOTTOMLINE: From the time I was jogging on the treadmill this morning the stock market was in the red and it only got worse as more earnings hit the wires. When Bank of America (symbol: BAC) reported subpar numbers it had the Dow futures lower by 75 points and it appeared the US market was in grave danger of a big down day. But the bulls flexed their muscles mid-day and rallied the market back from the lows to close flat.

Just two weeks ... Read More »

THE FINAL NUMBERS

NEWS: A wild ride for stocks today that ended with the major indices mixed. The Dow lost 20 points on the day and is now down 3 consecutive sessions and 5 of the last 6. The S&P 500 gained 2 points to break a 2-day sell-off. The NASDAQ was the leader once again with a gain of 1% or 28 points, helped by a number of strong earnings reports.

Here is a synopsis of a busy news day on Wall Street: September CPI came in at 0.3% with the core rising 0.2%, year-over-year the core CPI has increased 2.1%, just above the Fed’s comfort zone. New Housing Starts for September fell by 10.2%, the biggest drop since 1993. The Fed’s Beige Book was one of the weakest in years. Oil spiked above $89 for the first time ever on news Turkey is going into Iraq after the Kurds. The IMF lowered global growth estimates.

THE FINAL NUMBERS

NEWS: More red on the screen today as the Dow and S&P 500 fall for the fourth time in five sessions. The Dow closed the day off 71 points or 0.5% to close at a new 2-week low. The S&P 500 dropped 10 points or 0.7% to join the Dow at their worst closes of the month. The NASDAQ fell late in the session to close down 16 points or 0.6% ahead of a flurry of big-name technology earnings tonight.

UPDATE: Intel (symbol: INTC) reported better than expected 3Q earnings and is up over 4% in after-hours trading. IBM (symbol: IBM) beat their bottom line numbers by a penny, but is falling about 1% this evening.

THE BOTTOMLINE: Weakness today was across the board as the sellers did not spare any sector, except the commodities. From a technical perspective the major ... Read More »

THE FINAL NUMBERS

NEWS: Triple-digit loss for the Dow to begin the week, losing 108 points or 0.8% to close below 14,000 for the first time in over a week. The S&P 500 also lost 0.8% or 13 points to finish at a one-week low. The NASDAQ , which has outperformed recently, dropped 25 points or 0.9%. The big losers today were the small-cap stocks; the Russell 2000 fell 11 points or 1.4%.

WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU: Citigroup’s (symbol: C) earnings and a warning from manufacturing company Eaton (symbol: ETN) had the market on the defensive from the opening bell. C fell 3.4% on the session after it reported a 57% drop in net income and revenue that came in below analyst’s expectations. The good news is that they did not drop another sub-prime bomb on us and therefore the company may be seeing the light at the end of the credit crunch forest. Read More »