Stocks Plunge on Subprime Lending Concerns

  • March 13, 2007
  • Darren Wong

U.S. stocks closed sharply lower
today due to ongoing subprime lending concerns and a drop in
retail sales data.  Stocks in the subprime sector were led to
the downside by Accredited Home Lenders
(
LEND |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), which
plunged 65%.  

Crude for April delivery fell 1.4% to
$58.06 despite an OPEC meeting later this week, in which further
output cuts are expected.  Gold futures also fell, closing
lower by $0.90 to $649.40 an ounce.

Around Europe, the U.K.’s
FTSE 100 index fell 0.57% to 6,198.00, while France’s CAC 40 index
slipped 1.15% to 5,432.94 and Germany’s DAX index dropped 1.36% to
6,623.99.



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Stocks in
Motion

Accredited Home Lenders
(
LEND |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Plans
Addl. Capital Raising And Workforce Reductions; To Delay Filing Of Form 10-K (full
story).  LEND shares dropped by 65%.

Qualcomm
(
QCOM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Raises Q2 Outlook On
Higher Shipments Of Chips, CDMA Units; Increases Quarterly Cash Dividend (full
story).  QCOM shares jumped 4.25%.

Goldman Sachs
(
GS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Q1 Profit Soars 29% On
Top Line Growth; EPS Tops Estimate (full
story).  GS shares lost 1.9%.

Viacom
(
VIA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Drags YouTube, Google
(
GOOG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) To Court For Copyright Violation; Seeks Damages In Excess Of $1 Bln
(full
story).  GOOG shares dropped 2.6%, while VIA shares moved fractionally
lower.

Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Tightens Q1 EPS,
Revenue Guidance; Midpoint Unchanged (full
story).  TXN shares fell 2.6%.

For more stories as they happen, go to our
Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow

 -242.66 12,075.96

NASDAQ

 -51.72 2,350.57

S&P 500

 -28.65 1,377.95

 

 NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

 3,542,686,000 2,169,705,000

Advances

 594 547

Declines

 2694 2537

Up Volume

 203 225

Down Volume

 3199 1870

New Highs

 87 65

New Lows

 77 148



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors
Amex Oil Index (XOI) Amex Securities Broker/Dealer Index (XBD)
Morgan Stanley Healthcare Providers Index (RXH) Nasdaq Financial 100 Index (IXF)
Amex Natural Gas Index (XNG) Nasdaq Other Finance Index (OFINX)


Economic
News

Business Inventories +0.2% vs
+0.2% consensus

Retail Sales +0.1% vs +0.3%
consensus

Retail Sales ex-auto -0.1% vs +0.3% consensus

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com