Day Traders Diary

3/9/11

The U .S. stocks opened with modest losses, giving up some of the prior session's surge, as industrial and metals stocks fell as oil prices rose once again. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 10 points to 12,204, led by a drop in DuPont and Caterpillar shares. The S&P 500 lost 3 points to 1,319. The Nasdaq Composite slid 14 points to 2,751. Wednesday marks the second anniversary of the bull market from March 2009, however, the bulls are not in control today. The techs are weak following poor earnings at a small optical networking firm, Finisar. That stock is down 34% dragging the networking firms with it. Texas Instruments is down 2.5% after a mid-quarter update. All the chips are lower. Even Apple and Google are down. The one bright spot within the techs is IBM trading up 3% after a mid-quarter update. The commodities as mentioned are lower. The oil drillers and alternative energies are about the only stocks up within the commodity space. The retail sector looks surprisingly good even though the high price of oil should be hurting them. American Eagle, Bon Ton, and Children's Place are higher following less than stellar earnings. Buffalo Wild Wing, Tractor Supply, Dish Network, Lululemon Athletica, and Tyson Foods are all higher on upgrades. During the first hour the averages pushed lower similar to yesterday and then reversed course. Following the first hour the Dow was in the green led by IBM. The financials are holding up after a big rally yesterday. Goldman Sachs is up a percent this morning. Through the morning the averages sold off again only to rebound into the lunch hour. I don't' know what is keeping this market up. Resilience. Through the afternoon the Dow hovered around the unchanged level with the Nasdaq solidly in the red. In the last hour nothing changed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down a point at 12213. The S&P 500 closed down 1.8 points at 1320 while the Nasdaq declined 14 points to 2751.

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