Stock Market News for Jan 7, 2011 - Market News

On Thursday, markets shed their winning streak to fall marginally lower. Figures of Retailer's sales during the holiday shopping season were disappointing enough to take the indices down. Moreover, weak data about unemployment added to the jitteriness of investors.

 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 0.2 % and closed at 11,697.31.The S&P 500 dropped 0.2% and closed at 1,273.85. The tech-laden Nasdaq rose 0.3% and ended the day at 2,709.89. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) rose above 17. On the New York Stock Exchange, breadth of the market was on the negative side and for every 3 stocks that fell, 2 stocks ended in green. Thursday registered consolidated volumes of 4.7 billion shares.

 

Just a day after Automatic Data Processing's (ADP) National Employment Report encouraged the economy with its positive data on employment in the services sector; investors learnt of the government's gloomy unemployment report. The Labor Department reported a surge of 18,000 in initial jobless claims last week, which took the tally to 409,000 for December 2010. However, all is not bad with the economy as the data also suggested a dip in the number of unemployment benefit claims. Investors will now look forward to the Labor Department's data on monthly survey of all US unemployment rate and payrolls.

 

On a sectoral basis retail was weak due to shortfalls in December sales figures from prominent retailers. Shares of Target TGT plunged 6.8% and closed at $54.93 after a dismal sales increase of only 0.9% was reported against analyst estimate of 3.9%. Macy's M slid 4% and ended the day at $23.97 after reporting a rise 3.9% in sales, less than the predicted figure of 4.5%. Gap GPS, the clothing retailer, was also down 6.9%. However, TJX Companies rose 5.9% after it reported an unexpected jump in same-store sales. Saks added 4.6% after it bettered analyst expectations. Saks reported a rise of 11.8% in sales.

 

In the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2011 held in Las Vegas, Nvidia NVDA announced it would build CPU cores based on processor architecture from ARM Holdings while Microsoft MSFT confirmed the next Windows will support ARM-based systems. Shares of Microsoft and Nvidia rose 2.9% and 13.8% respectively. Qualcomm QCOM added 1.2% while Intel INTC lost 0.8%. Newly formed Motorola Mobility jumped 2.5% after it unveiled Xoom, a tablet product that utilizes Google's Android operating system. Shares of Google GOOG edged up 0.73%.

 

On to earnings news, agricultural biotech giant, Monsanto MON gained 2.4% after it reported a result in line with expectations and reiterated its earnings outlook for the full year. Wine company Constellation Brands STZ tanked 8.1% after it reported a 2% decline in net sales in its fiscal third quarter earnings.

 

Among individual stocks, automaker Ford F rose 1.8% after the announcement of its plans to uncover its newest electric Ford Focus at CES. Coal producer Massey Energy MEE dropped 3.1% after it said fourth-quarter coal shipments were lower than it had previously projected.

 
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