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Market Extends Its Rally

May 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Stocks rose on Tuesday, with the Standard Poor’s 500-share index extending its three-day rally to an intraday high, although profit-taking in technology shares capped gains.

In afternoon trading the S.P. was up 8.18 points, or 0.5 percent, to 1,625.68. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 76.91 points, or 0.5 percent, to 15,045.80. The Nasdaq composite Index rose 6.08 points, or 0.2 percent, to 3,398.96.

The tech sector, which had been among the gainers for the past couple of days, turned negative as a decline in Apple weighed heavily on the Nasdaq composite index.

Shares of First Solar and video subscription company Netflix were also down, pressuring the index.

Equities this year have gone without a sustained pullback as investors use any market decline to add to positions. Many analysts expect markets to trend higher, but some see a near-term pullback, citing a lack of positive catalysts and mixed economic data.

“The payroll report indicated that things are better than we were thinking in terms of growth, so until the market finds proof otherwise against the recovery, stocks will continue to move generally higher,” said Andres Garcia-Amaya, global market strategist with J.P. Morgan Funds in New York.

“There are still things to be concerned about, but stocks remain cheap and the biggest risk is to try and time a correction rather than follow the trend.”

Apple shares fell 0.7 percent in volatile trading after rising for the past three sessions. First Solar shares were off 9.2 percent after reporting earnings below Wall Street expectations late Monday. Netflix shares were off 1.9 percent.

Both Fossil and DirecTV reported earnings that surged past expectations. Fossil jumped 9.4 percent as one of the S.P.’s top percentage gainers, followed by DirecTV, up 6.8 percent.

Overseas, European shares rose about 0.3 percent on positive earnings, and the DAX in Frankfurt reached an all-time high after the release of data showing German industrial orders rose in March, confounding expectations of a drop.

Japan’s Nikkei stock market, which had been closed on Monday, jumped in a delayed reaction to Friday’s jobs data in the United States. The Nikkei ended the day up 3.6 percent. In Hong Kong the Hang Seng rose 0.6 percent and the Shanghai composite closed up 0.2 percent.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/08/business/daily-stock-market-activity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: , ,

Stocks Close Flat as Investors Parse Quarterly Results

August 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The markets opened higher but then sank. While crucial sectors like energy and financial stocks recovered on Wednesday, after leading the overall market decline on Tuesday, technology shares were dragged lower as Dell dropped more than 10 percent.

On Tuesday, Dell said that a weaker economy had lowered demand, flattening its sales in the quarter that ended July 29, and that it had pared low-margin products. Its net income rose 63 percent in the quarter, but it lowered its revenue forecast for the rest of the year.

The technology sector was down about 1 percent at the market close. The consumer discretionary index dipped 0.38 percent. Abercrombie Fitch, the retailer, was down more than 8 percent and led the list of leading decliners among the 10 most actively traded shares during most of the session. In reporting its results, Mike Jeffries, the chief executive, said the company faced greater uncertainty this year.

“Costing pressures will be greater in the second half of the year, and macroeconomic uncertainty has increased,” Mr. Jeffries said. “However, our strong top-line momentum and overall performance for the past several quarters give us confidence that we are well positioned to navigate through this environment.”

A range of stocks gained on Wednesday, including those in telecommunications, utilities and consumer staples. Investors extracted guidance about the economy and consumer spending from results.

Seasonal factors appeared to help Target, for example, which reported a higher quarterly profit aided by school-related sales toward the end of the period. Its shares rose more than 2 percent. Staples closed slightly lower. It raised its outlook and its earnings exceeded expectations.

But the technology sector in particular, after the Dell results, “cast a pall over consumer spending and business spending for that matter,” said Mark D. Luschini, the chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia.

“That is the overarching theme,” Mr. Luschini said. “Everybody is looking for any kind of signal or litmus test as to which way this is going to break.”

If the consumer pulls back because of political, economic or equity-related uncertainties after the recent market swings, he added, “that doesn’t leave a whole lot of horsepower to drive our economic activity, further enticing the risk of a recession.”

Over all, the declines in the equities market were slight — less than 1 percent in each of the three main indexes — but a reversal from the trend in early trading.

The market is recovering from volatility last week, and fell on Tuesday in the aftermath of a meeting between leaders of the euro zone’s two largest economies, France and Germany.

While many contend that the equities markets will remain unsteady for some time, bargain-hunters are benefiting from the recent lows.

“I think that the market is still reacting to a pretty oversold condition technically,” Tom Samuels, managing partner for Palantir Capital Management, said on Wednesday.

Mr. Samuels said that through early September, the market might continue to be “a little bullish,” but for now the respite was a time to reposition portfolios. Still, the balance was so tenuous that the financial markets were “one fundamental announcement” away, he added, from additional problems coming out of the euro zone or from economic statistics.

“There could be some more rough sailing ahead once we get out of August,” he said.

At 4 p.m., the Standard Poor’s 500-stock index was up 0.09 percent at 1,193.88. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.04 percent at 11,410.06 and the Nasdaq was 0.47 percent lower.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was 2.15 percent, compared with 2.23 percent late Tuesday.

After last week’s extreme volatility, with swings of hundreds of points, Wall Street tacked on gains over three consecutive trading days that helped shares recover by Monday from losses in the wake of the Aug. 5 downgrade of America’s long-term credit rating.

But then the markets declined on Tuesday after talks in Paris between Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France that analysts said fell short of easing concerns over how the euro zone’s finances would be handled.

On Wednesday, there appeared to be an early rally leading the riskier side of the market, and some strength in the commodity sector after a relatively benign reading in an important indicator of producer prices, Mr. Samuels noted.

The broadest indicator of wholesale prices edged up 0.2 percent in July, according to the Labor Department. Not counting food and energy, the indicator, the Producer Price Index, was up 0.4 percent, the most rapid increase in six months.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=82f3ccbb4068aec718f41f11a840ab8b

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Bucks: The People Who Should Sell Stocks Now

August 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The temptation to do something, anything, is overwhelming when stock prices are falling. Watching the market decline while you’re just standing there feels overwhelmingly foolish.

So ask yourself this: Why are you investing in stocks in the first place? The answer should give you a sense of whether you should stay or you should sell.

If you need the money soon, for a down payment on a house or living expenses in retirement, you shouldn’t have had much of that money in stocks in the first place. Selling now means locking in your losses, which will not feel so good if stock prices go up again in the next couple of months. Still, having most of your money in a savings account now would be better than having your stocks fall another 10 or 20 percent and then losing your cool and bailing out then.

If you can’t sleep at night or concentrate during the day, then that’s a sure sign that you did not belong in stocks in the first place. There is nothing like a quick market decline to provide a real-world test of risk tolerance. But so far, this is nowhere near as bad as what we experienced in late 2008 and early 2009. If you survived that, then you’ll probably endure whatever happens next.

Anyone else, however, is probably saving for a retirement that is a long way off. Some people look to accomplish this goal by investing every penny in their own business, and that works fine for some of them. Others are channeling everything they have into cheap real estate in the hopes of renting it out and becoming a land baron. Some people will get rich this way, without a doubt.

But for most people, it’s hard to imagine another investment with better odds of outpacing inflation and allowing for a decent retirement than stocks. True, few people would have chosen the do-it-yourself 401(k) system that has left each of us alone to make crucial decisions about our investments. In fact, it was for-profit employers that foisted it upon us because they didn’t want to bear the risk of old-fashioned pension plans.

You know who benefits from that move over the long haul though? Investors in the stocks of for-profit employers. And investing in stocks is a bet on capitalism. Even in the last few weeks, I haven’t seen any convincing evidence that there’s a better economic system out there.

What are you thinking as you watch the stock market fall?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=04bb0aad6f841537b4a0a22789aebc70

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,