Today was a day marked by selling, partly on economic news and partly on a call from S&P. S&P put the credit bias of the United Kingdom at "negative" from "stable" giving the notion that the nation's Triple-A ranking is possibly at risk to be cut. Then came the implications from Bill Gross and others that the U.S. could ultimately see the same fate. To show how bad the trend and bias was, long-dated Treasuries saw their yields rise as much as 15 basis points today. A slightly less-bad jobs report failed to catch any attention today. In short, if you are a market bear you are getting more feathers in your cap now that earnings are basically finished. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 8,291.82 -130.22 (-1.55%)
S&P 500 888.23 -15.24 (-1.69%)
Nasdaq 1,695.25 -32.59 (-1.89%)
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OpenTable Inc. (NASDAQ: OPEN) was a bright spot in the market today. Its premium pricing was followed by a premium opening price. Shares were up around $33.00 ahead of the close.
LDK Solar Co.Ltd. (NYSE: LDK) took a pretty big hit today after the company restated its 2008 results with more writedowns and higher allowances. Shares were off by almost 6% at $9.28 late in the day, but shares had been down as low as $8.50 at the worst time.
Suntech Power Holdings Co, Ltd. (NYSE: STP) was another weak solar player. While the company posted earnings that were not quite as bad as analysts expect, the company also said it was selling stock to raise capital. Shares were off by 15% at $13.36 ahead of the close.
QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) took a bit of a hit after being on the wrong end of a patent infringement case decision from the ITC. WHile it claims a workaround with a new supplier is in place, this one was down about 3% at $41.33 ahead of the close.
Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE: RF) took it on the chin. The troubled regional bank priced its huge equity offering at $4.00, which was an 18% discount to the close yesterday after we had already seen a huge drop over the last ten trading days. Shares were down 16% at $4.07 ahead of the close.
Petsmart Inc. (NASDAQ: PETM) was battered after Goldman Sachs cut the pet supplies retail giant to Neutral. It seems that there is lower foot traffic at the stores. Fido and Fifi aren't recession-proof after all. Shares were down over 9% at $20.24 ahead of the close.
If we drop another half of a percent on the S&P 500, this will mark another down week.
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