Weekly Wrap : Accounting/debt concerns continued to plague the market this week, as Enron hearings received ample coverage from the media... S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell to there lowest levels in more than three months... Until traders get a better handle on a) how many more companies are at risk to accounting/liquidity issues and b) how regulations/rules are likely to change in the future indices could be in for some tough sledding.
The lack of economic news, Senator Daschle's decision to shelve the economic stimulus bill, and cautionary guidance from Cisco (CSCO) also weighed on the indices this week... Losers were led by IT Consulting & Services, Oil & Gas Drillers, Computer Storage & Peripheral, Wireless Services, Leisure Time, Telecom Equipment and Networking Equipment groups... Gold sector led the advancers, as the base metal moved to its highest level in two years... Other winners included the Paper/Forest Products, Retail-Drug, Retail-Food, Broadcasting and Publishing groups.
Though the economic calendar remains on the light side next week, could get a boost from some decent Retail Sales, Business Inventories and Michigan Sentiment numbers... Traders will also be hoping from some upbeat guidance from stocks such as Hewlett-Packard (HWP), Applied Materials (AMAT), Dell Computer (DELL) and Nvidia (NVDA) -- all of which report earnings in the week ahead... Basically, will need to get some positives from the data/earnings fronts to offset ongoing concerns over the state of corporate finances.
YTD chart of major stock indexes
Index Started Week Ended Week Change % Change YTD
DJIA 9907.26 9744.24 -163.02 -1.6 % -2.8 %
Nasdaq 1911.24 1818.88 -92.36 -4.8 % -6.7 %
S&P 500 1122.19 1096.22 -25.97 -2.3 % -4.5 %
Russell 2000 480.04 466.67 -13.37 -2.8 % -4.5 % |
