Stock Profit Taking, Oil Down Again, Black Swan Vindicated

  • October 14, 2008
  • David Goodboy

Stocks closed down across the board on profit taking after yesterday’s historic rally. The DJIA still remains over 30% below its October 2007 highs. Popular author and money manager, Nasim Taleb, whose Black Swan theory and book promoted shooting for rare occurrences in the market is thriving in this volatile environment. His advisory clients have profited over 50% this year, vindicating his often unfairly maligned ideas, per Bloomberg. The DJIA closed down -76.62 to 9310.99, the Nasdaq fell -65.24 to 1779.01 and the S&P 500 gave back -5.34 to 998.01.

Citigroup
(
C |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) – Added 18.73% or $2.95 to $18.70/share after Henry Paulson advised that the government will buy stakes in individual banks. This statement resulted in the entire sector rallying.

Boeing
(
BA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) fell 4.27% or $2.01 to $45.07/share on failing union negotiations that resulted in a 6th straight week of idle factories.

JB Hunt
(
JBHT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) – The trucking company climbed 9.67% or $2.78 to $31.53/share on increasing quarterly profits due to hauling more freight.

NewStar Financial
(
NEWS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) – The middle market lending company dropped hard 24.30% or $1.90 to $5.92/share after being downgraded by JP Morgan.

Oil dipped another $1.90 to $79.29, gold slipped $2.70 to $839.80 and the VIX index .36% to 55.19.

Market Snapshot

Dow

 -76.62 9310.99

NASDAQ

 -65.24 1779.01

S&P 500

 -5.34 998.01

Economic
News

Treasury Budget (Sep): Consensus NA, Prior NA

Core PPI (Sep): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.2%

NY Empire State Index (Oct): Consensus -10.0%, Prior -7.4%

PPI (Sep): Consensus -0.3%, Prior -0.9%

Retail Sales (Sep): Consensus -0.4%, Prior -0.3%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Sep): Consensus 0.1%, Prior -0.7%

Business Inventories (Aug): Consensus 0.4%, Prior 1.1%

Crude Inventories (Oct 11): Consensus NA, Prior NA

Core CPI (Sep): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.2%

CPI (Sep): Consensus 0.1%, Prior -0.1%

Initial Claims (Oct 11): Consensus NA, Prior 478K

Net Foreign Purchases (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior NA

Capacity Utilization(Sep): Consensus 78.0%, Prior 78.7%

Industrial Production (Sep): Consensus -0.8%, Prior -1.1%

Philadelphia Fed (Oct): Consensus -5.0, Prior 3.8

Building Permits (Oct): Consensus 845K, Prior 854K

Housing Starts (Sep): Consensus 880K, Prior 895K

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Oct): Consensus 69.0, Prior 70.3

Win up to $10,000 predicting the direction of a stock!