Losses despite a historic week at USA

26 Jan 2009 | 07:39 Losses despite a historic week at USA

The historic week at Wall Street ended with losses at Wall Street on Friday, 23 January, 2008. Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of USA. Disappointing earning reports and news of job cuts continued to rattle market. Only exception was IBM. In addition there was a slew of banking industry earnings reports that contained sharp increases to loan loss reserves.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 203.96 points (2.5%) for the week to end at 8,077.22. Tech - heavy Nasdaq lost 52.26 points (3.4%) to end at 1,477. S&P 500 lost 18.23 points (2.1%) to end at 831.95.

During the week, a disappointing earnings report from Microsoft and failure to give guidance for next year coupled with news of 5,000 layoffs rattled market sentiments. On the contrary, better-than expected earnings reports from IBM and Apple proved that good earnings news these days is a company-specific happening.

In the US on Friday, 23 January, 2009, stocks ended on a mixed mode. Financial stocks logged the best performance of the session. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower by 45 points at 8,077, the Nasdaq closed higher by 12 points at 1,477 and the S&P 500 closed higher by 4 points at 831.

Google helped drive the tech sector higher after the company announced better-than-expected fourth quarter results, which featured double-digit top and bottom line growth.

The energy sector lent a strong support as crude oil prices rebounded from a 5% loss to finish more than 4% higher at $45.60 per barrel. Crude advanced nearly 25% this week.

GE reported in-line earnings results and said it does not see a scenario where it would need to raise capital. Management also reiterated that it is maintaining its dividend.

Crude closed at $45.60 per barrel, up 4.4%. Crude had been down more than 5% at its session low. This session's advance gives crude a week-to-date gain of almost 25%.

For the year 2009, Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are down by 8%, 6.3% and 7.9% respectively.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Buy Mutual Fund Offline - Invest with Investorline

Buy Mutual Fund Online - Transact Online

Franklin Templeton MF launches Templeton Fixed Horizon Fund