Home Sales Spike, Stocks Get Knocked Down, and Treasuries Tank

  • May 27, 2009
  • David Goodboy

A surprising upward spike in existing home sales, particularly in the Western United States, sent index futures rocketing higher on the release. However, traders immediately looked deeper into the figures finding increased inventories triggering a stock smack down off of the futures high. In addition, negative news from Monsanto and tanking Treasuries applied selling pressures, pushing shares sharply lower on the session.  The DJIA fell -173.47 to 8300.02. the NASDAQ gave back -19.35 to 1731.08 and the broad based S&P 500 plunged -17.27 to 893.06.

Monsanto
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PowerRating): Dropped 6.30% or $5.37 to $79.88 after the world’s largest seed maker stated its profits will be at the low end of estimates.

Wells Fargo
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PowerRating): Discouraging words from FDIC chairman, Sheila Bair, sent shares lower 6.12% or $1.57 to $24.08, taking the entire banking sector down with it.

Big Lots
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PowerRating): JP Morgan downgraded the closeout retailer to neutral sending shares down 6.45% or $1.63 to $23.65.

General Motors
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PowerRating): Led the DJIA lower by falling 20.14% or .29 cents to $1.15/share as bankruptcy becomes almost a certainty.

Gold fell $1.90 to $953.20, Oil advanced 71 cents to $63.61, and the fear index VIX gained 5.68% to 32.36.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

 -173.47 8300.02

NASDAQ

 -19.35 1731.08

S&P 500

 -17.27 893.06

Economic News

S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index (Mar): Consensus: -18.4%, Prior: -18.63%

Consumer Confidence (May): Consensus: 42.0, Prior: 39.2

Existing Home Sales (Apr): Consensus: 4.65M, Prior: 4.57M

Durable Goods Orders (Apr): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: -0.8%

Durables Ex-Transport (Apr): Consensus: -0.3%, Prior: -0.6%

Initial Claims (05/23): Consensus: NA, Prior: 631K

New Home Sales (Apr): Consensus: 356K, Prior: 356K

Crude Inventories (5/22): Consensus: NA, Prior: -2.10M

GDP – Prelim. (Q1): Consensus: -5.5%, Prior: -6.1%

GDP Deflator (Q1): Consensus: 2.9%, Prior: 2.9%

Chicago PMI (May): Consensus: 42.0, Prior: 40.1

Mich Sentiment-Rev (May): Consensus: 68.0, Prior: 67.9

According to a recent report, eight out of ten securities traded are exchange-traded funds. Want to learn how to trade them? Click here to pre-order High Probability ETF Trading, the first quantified book of trading strategies to improve your ETF trading.