American Express Drops, Stimulus Signed, Stocks Sink

Stocks rebelled against the signing of the stimulus package sinking to near the November lows. The market was shaken by consumer credit defaults knocking down the price of credit card issuers and worries from the auto sector. The DJIA sunk -297.81 to 7552.60, the Nasdaq gave back -63.70 to 1470.66 and the S&P 500 plummeted -37.67 to 789.17.

American Express
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– The largest U.S. credit card company by purchases fell 11.31% or $1.78 to $13.96/share on rising consumer defaults.

Deere
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– The farm equipment maker was cut to sell by Goldman, dropping 7.26% or $2.62 to $33.49 on the news.

General Motors
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– Led the DJIA lower dropping 12.80% or 0.32 cents to $2.18/share since they may need more government aid to survive.

Research in Motion
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– The blackberry maker dropped 7.98% or $3.87 to $44.64/share after the CEO stated that the profit margin decline may be permanent.

Oil dropped steeply $2.58 to $35.14, Gold surged $25.30 to $967.50 and the fear index VIX spiked 13.35% to 48.66.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-297.81 7552.60

NASDAQ

-63.70 1470.66

S&P 500

-37.67 789.17

Economic
News

Empire State Mfg. (Feb): Consensus: -23.75, Prior: -22.2

Net Long-Term TIC Flows (Dec): Consensus: $20.0B, Prior: -$21.7B

Housing Starts (Jan): Consensus: 530K, Prior: 550K

Building Permits (Jan): Consensus: 525K, Prior: 547K

Export Prices ex-ag. (Jan): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Import Prices ex-oil (Jan): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Capacity Utilization (Jan): Consensus: 72.5%, Prior: 73.6%

Industrial Production (Jan): Consensus: -1.4%, Prior: -2.0%

FOMC Minutes (Jan. 28): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Core PPI (Jan): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

PPI (Jan): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: -1.9%

Initial Claims (Feb. 14): Consensus: 615K, Prior: 623K

Leading Indicators (Jan): Consensus: 0.0%, Prior: 0.3%

Philadelphia Fed (Feb): Consensus: -25.0, Prior: -24.3

Crude Inventories (Feb. 13): Consensus: NA, Prior: 4.72M

Core CPI (Jan): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.0%

CPI (Jan): Consensus: 0.3%, Prior: -0.7%