Here’s The Strength…
The
major indexes opened poorly, briefly flirted with positive territory,
then skipped down for the day, racking up losses. There were few pockets of
strength across the sectors with technology taking the biggest losses.
The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
(
$INDU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) closed down 1.63%
to 9,711.86.
The S&P 500
(
$SPX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) closed down 1.71%
to 1,129.81.
The Nasdaq
(
$COMPQ.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) closed down 2.48%
to 1,888.02.
Today the markets were
fed data released in the “Beige Book” which offered little surprise
as to the state of the economy. The mostly anecdotal evidence pointed to
weakness for late October and early November. Going forward, there still remain
concerns over the number of layoffs, car sales, and luxury goods. Inflation was
cited as “stable,” and not a worry of the Federal Reserve.Â
Overall
NYSE volume was 1,390,243,000.
NYSE advancing issues were 1,039,
with up volume at 220,899,000;
declining issues were 2,119,
with down volume at 1,159,724,000.
Overall Nasdaq volume was 1,872,350,000.
Nasdaq advancing issues were 1,287,
with up volume at 319,589,000;
declining issues were 2,383 with
down volume at 1,542,857,000.
The VIX
was up 2.63 to 27.84. The TRIN
was up 1.43 to 2.57. Above average volume was clearly dominated to the down
side. At present the 200-day MA’s for the indexes represent resistance. While
the lower channel lines are holding for support.Â
Top
sector of the day was the Gold And
Silver Sector Index
(
$XAU.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
up 1.28%.
Losing
sectors of the day were the CBOE Internet Index
(
$INX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) down
6.96% to 129.24 and the Airline Index
(
$XAL.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) down 6.34% to
83.95.
Shares of energy trader Enron
(
ENE |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) were pummeled 85.16%
to 0.61, as
a potential takeover by Dynegy Â
(
DYN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), down 12.03%
to 35.97, collapsed.
Dynegy accused Enron of misrepresenting itself as issues of cash-flow become a
concern.
Credit
Suisse First Boston announced that it had sold its
online banking unit to the Bank of Montreal for $520 million. This is a
20% discount from the price CSFB took the unit private with. Â
Chipmaker Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 0.96% to 32.00, reassured
investors that it would meet fourth-quarter revenue expectations of between $6.2
billion and $6.8 billion but was less confident about when the economy will
rebound.
Chipmaker Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), down 4.76% to 31.03, said
it expects to earn 10 cents a share, in line with a fourth-quarter loss of 10%
of revenues from last year.Â
US
Airways Â
(
U |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
down 19.63% to 6.43 shares of
the company fell after it was announced that chief executive officer Rakesh
Gangwal would step down.
The fourth-largest PC maker Gateway
(
GTW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
rose 9.98%
to 9.15 on comments by Lehman Bros. analyst Dan
Niles, who
believes strong Thanksgiving sales point to a strong fourth quarter.
International Business Machines
(
IBM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) up 1.80% to 112.15 announced
it would cut 1000 jobs in its microelectrics division, about 4.6% of the
divisions positions. A weak semiconductor industry was cited as the reason.
Shares of retailer the Gap Inc.
(
GPS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
fell 5.49% to 13.61 on
comments by Prudential analyst Stacy Pak who didn’t like the merchandise being
sold and management’s lack of solutions for its problems. This is the company’s
second major downgrade in two months.