Closing Bell: Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ down; learning to embrace the recession


This was yet another tiring day in the markets, despite the ever-falling price of oil back to under $70.00 per barrel. The sad thing is that the selling started this morning and only grew worse throughout the day. There was no single catalyst. The fears are over the coming recession and weak earnings, but that is about as new as the sun rising in the East every morning. The death being witnessed in commodities and commodity-related stocks is only exacerbating the fears that the global recession is going to be much deeper than projections were indicating.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
  • DJIA - 8,519.21 (-5.69%)
  • S&P500 - 896.78 (-6.10%)
  • NASDAQ - 1,615.75 (-4.77%)
  • 10YR T-Note 3.618% (-0.085%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is trading down over 1% after the telephone giant posted lower earnings. Its earnings report came in at $0.67 EPS vs. the $0.71 estimate, despite adding 2 million wireless subscribers and despite activating 2.4 million 3G iPhone activations. Shares were down 8% at $23.61 in today's final minutes.

Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) managed to beat earnings handily after a royalty payment made earnings hit $0.54 EPS vs. $0.44 estimates. The company's lower revenue guidance and lower margin forecasts were significantly better than rival Texas Instruments and were better than what many traders were expecting. Shares were still up almost 6% at $14.62 in today's final minutes.

Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) joined the list of tech stocks hitting the new 52-week lows today. Shares were down over 8% at $34.74 in today's final minutes.
http://www.247wallst.com/2008/10/h-p-joins-the-c.html

McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) showed that despite tough times it has a winning combination. The fast food giant posted earnings of $1.05 EPS vs. $0.98 estimates, which is roughly a 25% gain year over year. The market weakness took it down by more than 1.5% to $54.29 by today's final minutes, but it had been positive most of the day.

SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK) is feeling the pain now that Samsung has withdrawn its offer to acquire the flash memory maker after saying that its offer price is too high compared to what the company is really worth in today's climate. Shares were down 32% at $9.95 in today's final minutes.

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Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-140.8512,749.61
NASDAQ-23.352,903.88
S&P 500-11.871,340.08

Last updated: February 10, 2012: 03:15 PM

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