Today could be blamed on many issues. No ECB rate cut, oil confusion, weak economic data, and more. But this is looking like wholesale de-leveraging across the board amid new credit concerns and tightening standards. Want to see what a bubble popping in commodities looks like? The sad part is that there are very few spots to hide out in, which is perhaps more symptomatic of a bear market. Here are the unofficial closing bell levels:DJIA 11,185.63 (-347.25)
S&P500 1236.76 (-38.22)
NASDAQ 2259.04 (-74.69)
10YR T-Note 3.643% (-0.054%)
52-week lows
Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades
American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) may be testing out the waters to see how Wall Street reacts. There are reports that the insurance giant may spin-off its bad assets into a new high-risk company to get the assets off its books. Shares were down 6% right before the close.
Ciena Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN) basically met earnings but it is seeing a slowdown and order delay from Tier One telecom and data carriers. It has now lowered revenue guidance to $190 to $210 million for its fiscal fourth quarter, far under the $263 million expected by analysts. Shares are down over 10% and at new 52-week lows.
Legg Mason Inc. (NYSE: LM) was down over 10% late in the day at $42.50 after Credit Suisse took an already cautious Neutral rating down to an Underperform rating on the stock on concerns that the firm is going to be unable to meet earnings expectations for multiple quarters and believes this firm is going to be riddled with redemptions and client defections to other managers.
Terex Corp. (NYSE: TEX) gave a warning that it is also seeing its global orders see pushouts from customers. It now sees next quarter earnings and Q4 earnings lower than expectations. So much for the global growth trade. That would coincide with the exact drop we are seeing in commodity stocks even though most of these haven't warned.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) was one of the only positives on the DJIA today after it showed same store sales for August of +3%. Analysts had only been looking for about 1.6% gains. The actual breakdown was +2.8% at Wal-Mart and +4.2% at Sam's Club. Total system-wide sales including new operations showed roughly 9% gains to $30.67 billion for August. Shares were up 0.5% at $60.07 at the end of the day.
Why do we have a weak dollar?
Holiday hiring slow for retailers
Closing Bell: What sell-off? (AIG, ABK, EPR, MBI, JAVA, ORCL, ERTS)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-04-2008 @ 10:46PM
Vinny said...
So vote for McBush. His 26 years in Washington and total embrace of Moron Bush's policies will insure that nothing will change. Isn't that simply GREAT. Doesn't matter...we are so far behind the rest of the industrialized world that we better get used to this third world existance we now enjoy. Hell, with McBush in charge we may qualify to get foreign aid from Europe.
9-04-2008 @ 11:50PM
art said...
Hah! Anyone who thinks the President has any real control over the economy should take a civis lesson. The President can only SUGGEST economic policy and enforce what Congress writes into law. He may set a tone but that's it.
The fact is that presidential Democraps and Retardicans equally ignore the effects of their economic policies and simply tell people what they want to hear at the moment so they get elected. If FDR--the greatest criminal of the 20th century--had been honest about his and the Democraps' policies under the New Deal, he and they would have been run out of town.