Day Traders Diary

2/23/12

U.S. stocks on Thursday opened with mild losses, with Hewlett-Packard among the shares weighing after the technology company reported a quarterly decline in sales of its personal computers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 21 points to 12,916. The S&P 500 Index dropped 2 points to 1,355. The Nasdaq Composite lost 4 points to 2,928. The earnings keep flooding in from the retail sector. Jack in the Box, Toro, Sears, Dillards, Target, Tim Hortons, and Office Max are higher on earnings. Sears actually missed estimates, but the stock is higher on news they will sell 11 stores. TJX is higher on an upgrade. A number of retailers are lower on earnings including Boston Beer, Kohls, Imax, Darden Restaurants, Hormel, and Hertz. After the first 10 minutes the selling accelerated with virtually all sectors lower. In the tech space HP is down 7% following earnings. Analog Devices is also lower on earnings. Juniper is down 2% on a downgrade. Even Apple is lower. The financials are trading lower this morning. JP Morgan is lower even though it was upgraded. The Industrials are lower except for Fluor up 4% after easily beating estimates. Parker Drilling and Trina Solar are lower on earnings. The energy space has been the best performing sector of late due to rising oil prices. Swift Energy is down 5% even though they beat estimates. Potash is down on cautious analyst comments. Through the first hour the Dow fell 50 points only to rebound into the green at the end of the first hour thanks in part to IBM. IBM is higher by 2% to a new all time high.

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