Stocks Still Can’t Find Footing

Any confirmation needed that a 6% rally in stocks that began a month ago was getting a little tired was found Monday, with equities retreating to their lowest close in nearly two weeks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average wound up gaining a point to finish at 12,381, but the Nasdaq slipped 9 points to 2772 and the S&P 500 fell 4 points to 1324. As mentioned recently in this space, it was becoming increasingly clear in the past few trading sessions that the main drivers of a momentum-based rally — small-caps, energy, and large-cap tech — were looking doubtful in their ability to provide any more energy for stocks’ upside. And here we went again, with the Russell 2000 falling 0.8% on Monday — and putting up a decline of about 2.5% since Wednesday’s close. Similarly, the Nasdaq 100 Index has found itself in a downtrend since the month started, and is in fact down about 3.5% since hitting its 2011 closing high on Feb. 17. Oil prices also gave back on Monday, settling under $110 a barrel for the first time since last Thursday, and sapping the will of traders sifting through small- and mid-cap energy stocks for one more momentum play. Of course, this meant good news for airline stocks, which were among the top industry performers of the day, reversing a 2011 downtrend for at least one day. Shares of Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL ) rose 4.5%, while United Continental (NYSE: UAL ) gained 3.7%. Perhaps another bright spot for stock optimists was the relative outperformance by financial stocks, which hadn’t joined wholeheartedly in the market’s recent advance. The SPDR Financial Select Sector (NYSE: XLF ) exchange-traded fund finished precisely flat at $16.46, suggesting that at least in terms of momentum-based sentiment, there is a bottom potentially in play. Much of that could be altered by the next several weeks of first-quarter earnings reports, which should put a little more substance behind what has been a fairly low-volume rally and drift in stocks. The unofficial first entrant, Alcoa (NASDAQ: AA ), didn’t do much for bulls late Monday, offering a mixed bag quarterly earnings report that saw the aluminum giant beat profit expectations but fall short on the top line. More troubling for investors may be in potential echoes to come from the earnings report late Monday from gaming equipment maker WMS Industries (NYSE: WMS ), which lowered near-term quarterly forecasts and said it didn’t see much improvement to its industry outlook  for this year — and 2012. It’s that sort of statement that market bulls hope is few and far between over the next few weeks.
Negocioenlinea
tdp2664
gol2664
InvestorPlace