Day Traders Diary

5/29/09

U.S. stocks opened lower on Friday thanks in part to a modest revision to first-quarter GDP growth and a down beat regional manufacturing survey. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 11 points to 8,392. Today may be the last day for GM in the Dow. The S&P 500 index declined a point to 905 while the Nasdaq Composite fell 4 points to 1,747. Similar to all week, stocks are mixed. In the retail space, J. Crew is jumping 20% thanks to better than expected earnings. Big Lots and Office Depot are higher on upgrades. Target is higher after defeating Ackman's proxy contest. Tiffanys is lower on dismal earnings. Burger King is lower on a downgrade.
In the tech sector, Dell is higher after beating estimates. Symantec and Oracle are higher on upgrades. Google looks good. Marvell Techs and Novell are lower following earnings. The financials are quiet. Morgan Stanley is modestly higher after having their earnings estimates raised. There seems to be a growing trend among the analysts to raise earnings estimates for the financials. The commodities continue to push higher. Oil and gold are at multi-month highs. Silver is having its' best month in 22 years. At the end of the first hour, the averages were in the green. The Dow was up 29 points. The Nasdaq rose 7 points. Through the morning and into the afternoon, the averages remained quiet, not far from the unchanged level. The commodities are performing well. Gold closed up 1.7%. Google looks good, the railroads are strong, and J. Crew is jumping 25%. Entering the last hour the averages were modestly in the red and remained near the unchanged level until the last 15 minutes when they shot higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 96 points at 8,500. The S&P 500 index rose 12 points to 919, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 22 points, or 1.3%, to 1,774. For the week, the Dow gained 2.7%, the S&P rose 3.6%, and the Nasdaq gained 4.9%. For the month, the Dow rose 4%, the S&P gained 5.3%, and the Nasdaq rose 3.3%.

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