To: ~digs who wrote (458 ) 4/29/2004 5:27:32 PM From: ~digs Read Replies (1) | Respond to [BRIEFING.COM] The major averages managed to end the session off their respective session lows, but the last minute buying efforts were dwarfed by the market's steady decline through the entirety of the session... The negative bias, which culminated in heavy volume and losses of 0.7-1.6% for the major averages, was largely an expression of the market's concern regarding rising interest rates, which has become all too familiar over the past month... Also contributing to the market's apprehension was continued unrest in Iraq, as well as belief that earnings growth is bound to slow as the market is faced with tougher comparisons in the second half of the year... To be entirely fair, none of these concerns are new... Yet, they found resonance with participants in today's session in view of the upcoming FOMC meeting on Tuesday, as well this morning's economic reports ... With respect to the latter, Q1 advance GDP at 4.2% was strong, but worse than the expected 5.0%, while the higher than expected Chain Deflator report at 2.5% (consensus 2.0%) and Employment Cost Index at 1.1% (consensus 0.9%) evoked concerns of accelerating inflation... At the same time, the Initial Claims report checked in at 338 K (consensus 343K), suggesting that the high readings of the past two weeks were temporary and lay-offs are slowing down... The bulk of the sectors ended the session in the red, with laggards of note including the hardware, telecom, internet, networking, semiconductor, software, biotech, REIT, industrial, oil services, transportation, utility, and broker/dealer, to name a few... Leaders to the upside were harder to come by, but included the gold and personal & household products groups... Elsewhere, the bond market closed with the 10-year note down 8/32, bringing its yield up to 4.53%... ..NYSE Adv/Dec 869/2441. ..NASDAQ Adv/Dec 860/2359.
