This was a key day for the markets. Oil was down essentially 6% and broke under that $64.00 per barrel mark in NYMEX WTI Crude after inventories showed a surge. But this was based on the economy and on inventories, and this took stocks lower as a result of the current parallel between oil prices and stock prices. A weak forecast for Friday's GDP may be more important than a weak Durable Goods report and more important than the retroactive Beige Book. The good news for today is that the market could have been down much worse than what we saw. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 9,070.72 -26.00 (-0.29%)
S&P 500 975.15 -4.47 (-0.46%)
Nasdaq 1,967.76 -7.75 (-0.39%)
Top Upgrades and Downgrades
ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) was run over. Its earnings were ugly, yet could have been much worse when you consider what the refiners have been saying, and considering that there's been a more than 50% drop in oil prices from a year ago. Its shares were down 3.5% at $42.86 immediately ahead of the closing bell.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) was a dumper during the day, and this cause options traders to bail on the stock and may have wrongly sucked in the first wave of headline trading. Its Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) search pact is being treated like a dud because the deal includes no up-front cash transaction. Yahoo! was down 12% at $15.11 late in the trading session.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE: GT) was perhaps the most unusual options trading stock today. What is interesting is that earnings are coming from the auto tire giant tomorrow. Shares were down almost 4% at $13.85 ahead of the close.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) was downgraded by rival Goldman Sachs today to Neutral from Buy. This was a drag on both bulge bracket brokerage firms, a.k.a. bank holding companies without being banks. Morgan Stanley was down by 0.6% at $27.20 at the end of the day, but shares were down well under the $27.00 point earlier.
Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) was a surprise down-stock today. Its rival Trimble posted low earnings but its stock went from negative to being up over 10% after earnings. Garmin shares were down 1% at $26.94 ahead of the close.
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