Late Session Profit Taking Hits Dow And Nasdaq
In economic news Thursday, the December Chicago Purchasing Managers’ index decreased to 54.6%, down from November’s 56.8%. The prices paid index came in at 65.5% which was down from the previous month’s 70.9%. By coming in lower than Wall Street expected, the index suggested that inflation may remain contained.
Stocks initially cheered the economic news and rose to all-time highs early in the session, but afternoon profit-taking cooled the market’s enthusiasm and prevented the Dow and Nasdaq from closing at new highs. With its one point gain, though, the S&P 500 was the lone record-setter of the three major indexes.
According to preliminary numbers, the Dow slid 31.80 to 11452.86, the Nasdaq slumped 4.59 to 4036.87, and the S&P 500 gained 1.00 to close at a record 1418.09.
Leading groups Thursday included gaming [$GAX.X>$GAX.X], up 2.5%, retailers [$RLX.X>$RLX.X], up 1.0%, airlines [$XAL.X>$XAL.X], up 1.0%, and Japanese stocks [$JPN.X>$JPN.X], up 0.8%.
Groups on the downside included forest and paper products [$FPP.X>$FPP.X], down 1.2%, Internets [$GIN.X>$GIN.X], down 1.7%, biotechnology [$BTK.X>$BTK.X], down 1.8%, and oil services [$OSX.X>$OSX.X], down 3.8%.
Among Dow components, Hewlett Packard [HWP>HWP], Phillip Morris [MO>MO], Johnson & Johnson [JNJ>JNJ], and Disney [DIS>DIS] were the top performers. Dow laggards included International Paper [IP>IP], McDonalds [MCD>MCD], and Alcoa [AA>AA].
Internets finished generally lower with Amazon [AMZN>AMZN], America Online [AOL>AOL] and eBay [EBAY>EBAY] continuing their recent downward trends. Yahoo [YHOO>YHOO], on the other hand, rose a solid 12 3/8 to 416 1/16 for an all-time high close. Yahoo managed to trade as high as 448 intra-day before pulling back during the early afternoon.
Shares of Qualcomm [QCOM>QCOM] traded as high as 740 1/8 Thursday before pulling back by the end of the day. The wireless technology giant closed down 12 to 647.
Among the big-cap technologys, Microsoft [MSFT>MSFT] and Intel [INTC>INTC] drifted marginally lower while Sun Microsystems [SUNW>SUNW], Oracle [ORCL>ORCL] and Cisco [CSCO>CSCO] all finished higher.
Thursday trading volume remained light, and that pattern should continue in Friday’s shortened New Years Eve session which ends at 1:00 PM ET.