Closing Bell: Profit taking inside a tornado

Posted Jul 24th 2008 4:14PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN), Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI), Federal Natl Mtge (FNM), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), Level 3 Communications (LVLT)

If you were getting used to the bulls running the show, the bears whispers of "Remember us?" turned much louder today. If you were looking for the day we finally got profit taking after a monster rise in financial stocks, it came. Weak housing data was said to be one of the key issues for the market, but the more than 400,000 weekly jobless claims filed was much worse than expected. Oil didn't skyrocket but it did at least catch a bid today and oil was back up to over $125.00 per barrel late in the day. If you want a big figure, PIMCO's Bill Gross said that total financial writedowns could see $1 Trillion.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
DJIA 11354.49 (-277.89)
S&P500 1253.12 (-29.07)
NASDAQ 2280.11 (-45.77)
10YR T-NOTE 4.016% (-0.132%)
52-WEEK LOWS
TOP ANALYST UPGRADES
TOP ANALYST DOWNGRADES

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) saw a mega-surge after the market decided that its above estimate earnings and somewhat conservative guidance was to match the environment rather than to be any red flag. Shares were up a sharp in today's final minutes.

Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) led the financial sector down just like it did on the way up. Shares were down a sharp near-20% at$12.02 in today's final minutes.

Level 3 Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: LVLT) was perhaps the big surprise. It beat earnings and gave a slightly better outlook on free cash flow for the year. It looks like this one is set to become a leveraged sentiment proxy based upon the market trends of the day, and here's an explanation for that. Shares were down almost 7% at $3.32 in today's final minutes.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) saw a lot of caution into today's analyst meeting. Its online unit's president leaving to go run Juniper was a definite drag and timed very strangely for the company. Shares were down 3.5% at $25.50 in today's final minutes of trading.

Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) was the true technology and communications winner. Its earnings were good but the CDMA-leader finally settled its Nokia-suit which has been more than a major drag on the stock. Shares were up over 17% at $52.69 on more than 100 million shares in today's final minutes.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) was the surprise loser today with shares down almost 8% at $2.46 on over 50 million shares traded by today's final minutes. Everyone kept expecting the announcement of an FCC Approval but all that came were an increased XM debt sale refinancing and it announcing it was in discussions for a consent decree with caveats.

Tags: mortgage crisis, MortgageCrisis, pimco, writedowns