Stock Market Today 2/4/10
US Market
Stocks Posting Steep Losses In Mid-Morning Trading
Stocks are showing substantial weakness in mid-morning trading on Thursday, as concerns over the battered labor market and overseas credit have generated significant selling pressure in the face of positive earnings and recovering retail sales. The major averages are all firmly in negative territory, offsetting the gains posted early in the week.
The weakness among stocks has come as the Labor Department released a report showing that initial jobless claims for the week ended January 30th unexpectedly edged up to 480,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 472,000. Economists had been expecting jobless claims to fall to 455,000 from the 470,000 originally reported for the previous week.
Peter Boockvar, equity strategist for Miller Tabak, said, “Ahead of tomorrow’s Payroll figure, the claims data has lost a bit of its recent momentum and reflects a private sector that still remains very reluctant to add workers.”
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department recently reported that orders for manufactured goods increased by 1.0 percent in December following a matching increase in November. Economists had been expecting factory orders to increase by 0.5 percent compared to the 1.1 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.
The condition of overseas credit markets are also a significant overhang on market sentiment today, with continued debt problems faced by Greece, Spain and Portugal contributing to the selling pressure.
The major averages have slowed their decline in recent decline but remain near their lows of the session. The Dow is currently 181.00 at 10,089.55, the Nasdaq is down 39.92 at 2,150.99 and the S&P 500 is down 21.42 at 1,075.86.
Sector News
Gold stocks are some of the morning’s worst performers, as reflected by the 4.6 percent slide by the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index. With the decline, the index sank to a five-month intraday low in earlier trading.
The decline by gold stocks comes along with a drop in the price of the precious metal, which is currently down by $27.90 to $1,084.10 an ounce. The European credit concerns have led to some strength in the value of the U.S. dollar, which in turn has pushed the price of gold sharply lower.
Steel, semiconductor, airline, and electronic storage stocks are also moving sharply lower along with many others and have nearly offset all of the gains posted earlier in the week.
(Source: iHub World Daily Briefing)
Tags: nyse stocks
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