TradingMarkets Mid-Day Movers

  • March 12, 2007
  • Darren Wong

U.S. stocks are moving lower as
worries over subprime lending continue.  Subprime lenders
New Century Financial
(
NEW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Novastar
Financial
(
NFI |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) have been hit particularly hard this
morning with NEW shares down 48% and NFI shares lower by 12%.

Crude
futures are moving lower in morning trading as traders expect OPEC
not to cut output at their next meeting.  Crude is currently
trading lower by 1.9% to $58.91 a barrel.  Gold futures for April delivery
are also moving
lower currently down 0.6% to $648.00 an ounce.

Asian markets continued
their recovery in Monday’s session with gains across the board. 
The Shanghai Composite gained 0.6% to 2,954.91, Tokyo’s Nikkei
rose 0.75% to 17,292.39, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added
1.6% to 19,442.42.


From a quick glance at our new
PowerRatings
Heat Maps*,
we are beginning to see overall weakness in the market after last week’s bounce. 
The Electronics and Diversified Services sectors are showing
strong signals that have historically led to weakness, while no particular sector is looking very strong at this point.



Stocks in
Motion

New Century Financial
(
NEW |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Creditors
Refrain From Financing; Shares Plunge (full
story).  NEW shares fall by 48%.


UnitedHealth Group
(
UNH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) To Acquire Sierra Health For $43.50
Per Share In Cash (full
story).  UNH shares rise by 0.5%.

Ford
(
F |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) To Sell Aston Martin Business
To David Richards-led Consortium For $925 Mln (full
story).  F shares lose 0.7%.

Boeing
(
BA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) Receives $2.26 Bln Order
From Kuwait’s Alafco For 787-8 Dreamliners And Next-generation 737-800s (full
story).  BA shares gain 1.22%.

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

Market Snapshot

Dow

 -13.94 12,262.38

NASDAQ

 -0.35 2,387.20

S&P 500

 -0.96 1,402.85

 

 NYSE NASDAQ

Volume

 1,041,610,000 614,818,000

Advances

 1418 1307

Declines

 1623 1535

Up Volume

 387 282

Down Volume

 492 266

New Highs

 58 57

New Lows

 25 38



Strongest/Weakest Sectors

Strongest Sectors

Weakest Sectors
Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payors Index (HMO) Amex Securities Broker/Dealer Index (XBD)
Amex Gold Bugs Index (HUI) Nasdaq Other Finance Index (OFINX)
Amex Networking Index (NWX) Nasdaq Financial-100 Index (IXF)


Economic
News

No economic reports released
today.

Darren Wong

Associate Editor

darrenw@tradingmarkets.com