Stocks Rally from Lowest Levels as Traders Seek Safety in Staples: 7 Stocks You Need to Know for Friday
Traders bid stocks higher over the course of the trading day, turning a lower open into a higher close for the session. Buying in energy shares in particular helped many of those stocks finish off their lowest levels of the day, as did buying in consumer staples stocks like ^HNZ^ and ^KFT^, both up more than 1%.
Here are 7 Stocks You Need to Know for Friday.
Sell Goldman? Shares of ^GS^ were downgraded to “sell” by Rochdale Securities analyst Richard Bove, who cited an article in Rolling Stone by Goldman critic Matt Taibbi as well as recent Congressional inquiries into the company’s alleged participation in the mortgage-backed securities market.
GS has been trading below the 200-day moving average for nearly a month. The stock was one of the biggest decliners in the S&P 500 and is oversold.
Also oversold below the 200-day moving average are shares of ^C^. Thursday’s close marked the stock’s second consecutive finish below the 200-day.
Pullbacks in energy stocks have both ^VLO^ and ^COP^ (below) closing lower for a second day in a row.
Shares of COP have closed at their lowest level since the first half of February, and are near oversold territory above the 200-day ahead of trading on Friday.
After pulling back for two days in a row and nearly closing in oversold territory, shares of ^SLW^ (below) rallied to close back above their 200-day moving average on an intraday basis on Thursday.
SLW remains just outside of oversold territory and is below its 5-day moving average.
Breaking out above a short term trading range to close at its highest level since March were shares of ^NVLS^ on Thursday.
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Up six days in a row, ^NVDA^ (below) announced quarterly earnings that smashed through analyst estimates.
The stock had gained more than 1% ahead of the earnings announcement.
David Penn is Editor in Chief of TradingMarkets.com