Volatility is back, in a big way. The markets started higher this morning, plunged lower midday, then recovered most of their losses in the last hour of trading. Blue chips and the broad S&P 500 index recovered almost all of their earlier losses, but the Nasdaq still finished with a large decline. The Dow finished the day lower by 34 points. The S&P 500 lost just one point. The Nasdaq plunged by 53 points, or 1.92%. 
The obvious leader on the downside today was the technology sector. For so long now the tech stocks have outperformed the market as a whole, but last night's earnings from tech bellweather Cisco gave traders a reason to sell the sector, and sell they did. Cisco Systems (Nasdaq:CSCO) led the big caps to the downside, shedding 9.53% of its value today alone. EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) fell by 7.06% on more than 100 million shares of volume today. Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) fell 6.08% on very heavy volume as well. Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq:NTAP) fell another 5.49% today, adding to its losses for the week. Oracle Corporation (Nasdaq:ORCL), another large cap tech name, lost 7.83% on the heels of the Cisco news. Two internet darlings fell hard today. Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG) shares lost more than $39 or 5.33% on the day. Baidu.com (Nasdaq:BIDU) fell by 9.11% on the day after an analyst downgraded the stock.
Another area of weakness today was the retailers. Same store sales reports were out this morning and the majority of retailers reported numbers that came in below expectations. Limited Brands Inc. (NYSE:LTD) reported same stores sales that fell 6% from a year ago, and the stock fell by 8.12%. Kohl's Corporation (NYSE:KSS) announced that its sales fell 3.8%, a number that was much weaker than most expected. KSS shares fell by 3.36% on the day.
Notable New 52 Week Lows
- Coach Inc. (NYSE:COH) Lost another 2.33% on the day today.
- Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE:JWN) Shares fell 2.7% today.
- Lowe's Companies (NYSE:LOW) hit another new low before rebounding to edge higher by 0.62% today.
- National City Corporation (NYSE:NCC) Shares lost 3.25% on huge volume today.
- Micron Technology (NYSE:MU) Fell by 1.69% to continue its slow seemingly constant decline.
It should be noted that the volume today was extremely heavy. Today the Nasdaq traded over 3.5 billion shares, which was good enough for the second heaviest volume of the year. The NYSE also was very busy today, trading over 2.2 billion shares. It's hard to tell if the huge volume today was a positive or negative sign since it could be taken as a huge volume low or it could be taken as a sign that the bears are in control.
The technology index rolling over today was quite disheartening for the bulls. I must say that the fact that all of the recent tech leaders getting crushed today was not a good sign for the short-term in the Nasdaq. I expect some lower prices to come in the near term for techs, but I also think that when these lower prices come, there will be plenty of bargains for investors.
Tommorrow will likely be a very volatile one again as investors try to position themselves for the weekend.
To signup for the RSS Feed from this site please click here.
Comment Preview