From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : Soured sentiment amid ongoing headline risk caused stocks to set a new low for 2011. Although the market worked its way up from that point, it still suffered its seventh loss in nine sessions.
Market participants continue to grapple with threats of nuclear fallout in Japan and further instability surrounding the social and political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa. Uncertainty regarding portfolio positioning amid those themes has made many become defensive, or even skittish.
Fret among investors became most apparent during an aggressive midday selling effort that dropped the S&P 500 to a new two-month low of 1249. The Volatility Index, often euphemistically dubbed the Fear Gauge, simultaneously spiked to its highest level since last summer.
Even though stocks logged another loss, the major averages were able to work their way off of session lows. Some participants continue to abide by the buy-the-dip philosophy that had frequently proven so successful in previous weeks.
While the dollar traded with strength amid losses in the stock market, the greenback actually lost ground against the yen. The Japanese currency actually hit 79.72 yen per dollar, which makes for its highest level in more than 15 years. Many pundits attribute the yen's strength to an unwind in the carry trade.
Data generally disappointed today. First on the list of releases is a housing starts report that showed a 22.5% drop in February to an annualized rate of 479,000 units, which is not only considerably less than the 575,000 units that had been forecasted, on average, by economists surveyed by Briefing.com, but also the slowest rate in almost two years. Building permits for February were also discouraging. They fell 8.2% from the prior month to an annualized rate of 517,000, which is less than the 573,000 that had been broadly expected.
Excluding food and energy, producer prices for February increased by 0.2%, as had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com. However, the headline PPI number spiked 1.6%, which is far more than the 0.6% that had been broadly expected. DJ30 -242.12 NASDAQ -50.51 NQ100 -2.5% R2K -1.2% SP400 -1.0% SP500 -24.99 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 730/2.58 bln/1899 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 703/1.46 bln/2323
6:25PM ON Semiconductor: Update on impact to ON Semiconductor from Japan earthquake (ONNN) 9.58 -0.21 : Co announced the impact to operations in Japan from last Friday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The company has confirmed that there have been no on-site injuries to the SANYO Semiconductor division or other ON Semiconductor employees in Japan as a result of the earthquake and tsunami.
Sierra Wireless (SWIR) and PositiveID (PSID) announced that Sierra Wireless AirPrime intelligent embedded modules will power PositiveID's iglucose mobile health solution for real-time diabetes management.
08:14 am Apple tgt raised to $450 from $350 at BTIG: . BTIG raises AAPL's tgt to $450 from $350 following a strong acceptance of the iPad 2 over the weekend and their expectation of continued strong sales of the iPhone 4. They expect Apple to sell over 40 mln iPads in 2011 which is up from their prior estimate of 33 mln. They also increased their ASP assumptions based on their expectation of a larger mix of higher capacity models and the impact from smart cover sales. |
