Closing Bell: Europe Keeps Feeding the Bears (HPQ, VRSN, WMT, HD, LOW)

Posted May 18th 2010 4:30PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Wal-Mart (WMT), Home Depot (HD)

The red coats are coming! This time they are from continental Europe. Today's drop was tied to tighter financial reform and a ban on naked short selling in Germany. Oh well, an excuse is an excuse. PPI did not even matter because of the price drop in oil of late, and we did see housing starts were up, but building permits were down.

Here were today's closing bell levels:

S&P 500 1,120.80 -16.14 (-1.42%)
Dow 10,510.95 -114.88 (-1.08%)
Nasdaq 2,317.26 -36.97 (-1.57%)

Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ) was down with the market ahead of earnings, but that was a macro-issue more than a fear of HP's numbers. Shares closed down 1.5% at $46.79.

VeriSign Inc. (VRSN) was up over 5% on word that its security business is about to be sold. The stocks closed up 5.2% at $28.23 on five-times normal volume.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.(WMT) was one of the few winners after earnings in the DJIA. Earnings were beaten and guidance was mixed. With a 1.85% gain to $53.71, it seems that mixed was "good enough" for today.

The Home Depot, Inc. (HD) beat earnings and gave an upbeat guidance call compared to Lowe's Companies, Inc. (LOW) on its earnings report yesterday. The market took Home Depot south as well, though. Shares were down 2.4% at $34.73 at the close for Home Depot, and Lowe's shares were down 2.2% at $24.70 at the close.

Tags: europe, germany, HD, housing starts, HPQ, LOW, ppi, WMT