Things got very ugly today on the street as stocks were hit with their second largest down day this year. Good news was nowhere to be found today as oil topped $140, and Goldman downgraded General Motors and Citigroup. The Dow tanked by 358 points. The Nasdaq plunged 80 points. The broader S&P 500 fell 39 points, or 3%.
There was nowhere to hide in the stock market today, but the biggest sector losers were financials, technology, and capital goods.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) shares shed another 6.76% and hit a new low today after announcing it will layoff 7,500 employees after the Countrywide deal closes. American Express (NYSE:AXP) hit a 5 year low today, falling 5.01% on strong volume. Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) shares plunged by 7.15% in today's trading. NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX) fell 5.07% and hit a 52 week low. Principal Financial (NYSE:PFG) also hit a new low today, falling by 7.6%.
Tech stocks were hurt by investors belief that Research in Motion future forecasts cast some doubts about tech spending in the next few quarters. Baidu.com (Nasdaq:BIDU) shares lost 5.22% on average volume. Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), which has been one of the strongest tech stocks of late, fell by 5.12% today. Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq:SNDK) fell 5.05% and has now lost almost 60% in the last year. MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE:WFR) fell 5.23% as all of the solar plays weakened throughout the day.
The capital goods sector was also hit hard today. Jacobs Engineering Group (NYSE:JEC) fell 5.14% on the day as the construction services group fell across the board. Manitowoc (NYSE:MTW) plunged more than 7% on the session. Lennar Corporation (NYSE:LEN) shares plunged 8.44% during the session, but are rising afterhours as the company reported smaller than expected losses.
Notable 52 week lows
- Honeywell International (NYSE:HON) Shares fell by 4.58% on the session.
- Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) Shares lost 5.98% and are down 53.49% in the last 6 months alone.
- Allegheny Technologies (NYSE:ATI) This company is in a space where most companies have done well, but they have missed out in a big way.
- Valero Energy (NYSE:VLO) If you want to look for the weakest large cap energy stock in the past few months, this is it. It lost another 5.69% today.
The internals of the market were just as awful as one would expect for a day like today. The NYSE new highs numbered 33 and the new lows 424. On the Nasdaq the highs were 30 and the lows 332. Declining issues made up about 80% of stocks on the two exchanges combined. The volume was heavy, but considering how huge of a selloff this was the volume was far from extraordinary.
It seems that all that could go wrong in today's market did so. What were the causes? Will this change anytime soon? Stay tuned because I will be covering those topics in the next couple of days here at GrowYourFunds.
Comment Preview