TradingMarkets Mid-Day Movers
The U.S. stock markets are
trading mixed through the morning session with the Dow and S&P
slightly higher and the Nasdaq in negative territory.Â
The pullback by the
tech-heavy Nasdaq is partly due to weakness in the networking
sector, which is giving back some ground after moving sharply
higher in the two previous sessions. Alcatel-Lucent
(
LU |
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PowerRating)
has helped to lead the sector lower after reporting a fourth
quarter loss.
On the other hand, a strong
gain by shares of General Motors
(
GM |
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PowerRating) is helping to keep
the Dow in positive territory. GM is currently up 6.9 percent
after Deutsche Bank upgraded its rating on the auto giant to Buy
from Hold.
Crude oil for March delivery is
trading flat for the morning currently up 2 cents to $59.73 a
barrel despite an explosion at a California oil field owned by
Occidental Petroleum. Gold prices rose to the highest level
in six months currently trading up $6.50 an ounce to $669.30.
Today’s choppy
trading is indicative of what we were expecting based on
Thursday’s
PowerRatings
Heat Maps*.
The sectors that seem to have to have the highest risk continue to
be electronics and drugs. Some of the biggest losers from
these sectors that also have PowerRatings of 1 and 2 include
Momenta Pharmaceuticals
(
MNTA |
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Chart |
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PowerRating) down 8%, MRV Communications
(
MRVC |
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PowerRating)
down 3%, and Anadigics
(
ANAD |
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News |
PowerRating)
down 2.6%.
Click here for a free trial to PowerRatings
Heat Maps*,
so that you can quickly gauge overall market direction and go deeper into
individual sectors.
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Darren Wong
Associate Editor
darrenw@tradingmarkets.com