Here Are The Leaders
Stocks
were happy this morning as gains were made and held for most of the
session until traders went into sell mode around 3 p.m. ET, though the three
major indexes were able to close positive. Extremely light volume had technology-related
sectors ruling the day, with health care issues lagging in the red.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
(
$INDU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) closed up 0.53%Â
to 10,088.07.
The S&P 500
(
$SPX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) closed up 0.54%Â
to 1,150.82.
The Nasdaq [$COMPQ.X |$COMPQ.X] closed up 0.83%
to 1,960.7.
Business headlines were quiet on this day after
Christmas as retailers grabbed what little of attention there was from Wall
Street. Tomorrow, key economic data will be revealed as Initial Jobless Claims
and the Help Wanted Index numbers are released. Friday traders will digest data
from Durable Orders, Chicago PMI, Consumer Confidence, Existing Home Sales, and
New Home Sales.
Overall
NYSE volume was 792,634,000.
NYSE advancing issues were 2,052,
with up volume at 502,914,000;
declining issues were 1,093,
with down volume at 250,813,000.
Overall Nasdaq volume was 1,126,275,000.
Nasdaq advancing issues were 2,182,
with up volume at 793,871,000;
declining issues were 1,500 with
down volume at 316,972,000.
The VIX
was down 0.28 to 22.93. The TRIN
was down 0.41 to 0.95.
Today’s volume extremely light
and little has changed from the big picture of the markets. The Dow and the
S&P 500 remain south of their 200-day MAs in what could potentially turn
into head-and-shoulder patterns, as the Nasdaq remains above its 200-MA, holdingÂ
the biggest gains of this fall’s rally.Â
Top
sectors of the day were the Dow
Jones Internet Commerce Index
(
$ECM.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) up 4.02% at 52.41
and the Oil Service Sector
Index
(
$OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)Â up 3.78% at 89.41.
Losing
sectors of the day were the Japan
Index
(
$JPN.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) down 1.28% at 108.66
and the Gold and Silver Index
(
$XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) down 0.83% to 54.73.
Discount retail giant Wal-Mart
(
WMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 1.80% to 58.16, announced that it would same-store sales for
December would beat expectations. Rival K-Mart said that it expects its same-store
sales for December to come in at the lower end of expectations.
Internet media company Yahoo!
(
YHOO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 4.56 at 17.43, announced that online purchases from its
websites came it at $10.3 billion, surpassing last year’s numbers by 86%. Other
online retailers also rose on the news: Amazon.com
(
AMZN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 12.92 at
1.27, eBay
(
EBAY |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 3.90 at 66.30.
Oil company Exxon Mobile
(
XOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up
1.44% to 39.56, rose ahead of OPEC’s meeting in Cairo this Friday where it is
widely expected that it will be decided that oil production will be cut by 1.5
million barrels a day.
Software developer Oracle
(
ORCL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
down 1.67% to 14.10, warned that earnings from its Oracle Japan division would
come in at less than expected.
Jewelry retailers were in the news today as Tiffany
& Co.
(
TIF |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 4.61% to 31.80, rose on comments from UBS Warburg
raised its 12-month price target by 11%, claiming prices will rebound after this
bad year of sales. Zale Corp.
(
ZLC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), 1.78% to 40.68%, rose after
being upgraded by Goldman Sachs to Market Outperform from Market Perform.
Shares of Burnham Pacific
(
BPP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up
6.09% to 5.23, rose after news that legendary investor Warren Buffett had
purchased a 5.06% stake in the company.
Technology superpower Sun Microsystems
(
SUNW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
up 2.77% to 12.24, was up as much as 4% earlier as A.G. Edwards upgraded the
stock to Strong Buy from Buy.