Stocks Snap 7-Day Win Streak
Stocks snapped a 7-day win streak
with the losses being most severe in the NASDAQ indexes. The slight
losses from early in the session extended throughout the day with only one
sector (Disk Drives) closing higher. Reports on the holiday retail sales numbers
were mixed. Retailers got off to a bright start on Friday but were unable to
sustain that momentum through the weekend.
Energy prices are closed sharply lower. Warm weather across
the northeast US and comments from OPEC that it intends to maintain production
levels helped push prices down. Heating Oil hit a 4-month low.
In economic news, Existing Home Sales fell 2.7% in October to
a rate of 7.09 Mln. units (report).
The decline was larger than forecast.
The report sent Treasuries higher and the US Dollar Index
lower. The Dollar had its biggest fall in 7-weeks versus the Euro.
Stocks On The Move
Merck
(
MRK |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced the first phase of its
global restructuring program, including the planned elimination of 7,000
positions by the end of 2008 (more).
American Pharmaceutical Partners
(
APPX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement with its parent company
American BioScience
(
ABI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) (more).
Hillenbrand Industries
(
HB |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) revealed fourth
quarter net loss of $229.7 million compared to net profit of $61.9 million
last year (more).
Henry Schein
(
HSIC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) affirmed annual
2005 guidance of $1.77 to $1.83 earnings per diluted share, which includes
$0.02 to $0.06 from sales of Fluvirin influenza vaccine (more).
Armor Holdings
(
AH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) said that it
received orders for $53.1 million from the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and
Armaments Command for production of additional M1114 Up-Armored HMMWVs in 2006
(more).
TiVo
(
TIVO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) announced that it plans
to offer the first television-based advertising search solution in Spring 2006
(more).
Go to our
Breaking
News section for more stories as they happen.
| Dow |
-40.90 | 10,890.72 |
| NASDAQ |
-23.64 | 2239.37 |
| S&P 500 |
-10.79 | 1257.46 |
| NYSE | NASDAQ | |
| Volume |
1,979,904,000 | 1,559,640,000 |
| Advances |
1141 | 917 |
| Declines |
2183 | 2181 |
| Up Volume |
517 | 458 |
| Down Volume |
1382 | 1086 |
| New Hi’s |
131 | 116 |
| New Lo’s |
97 | 50 |
|
|
Weakest Sectors |
| Disk Drive ( DDX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) |
Oil Service ( OSX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) |
| Â | Oil Index ( XOI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) |
| Â | Natural Gas ( XNG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) |
Ashton Dorkins