Wednesdy’s Market Recap (12/31/08)
December 31, 2008
The past year will be remembered as one of the worst years for Wall Street, but it did end on a positive note. All three major U.S. indexes ended higher, each gaining over 1% on Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average added 108 points, and finished the trading day and the year at 8,776 points. The index has lost 33.8% since the beginning of 2008, proving to be the worst year for the Dow since 1931. The Nasdaq composite index was up 26 points, and closed with 1,557 points. On the year, the Nasdaq has been down 40.5%. The S&P 500 index ended 12 points higher, and finished the 2008 at 903 points. During 2008, the index declined 38.5%. Trading volume was low on the NYSE as many market players were on vacation as 1.3 billion shares were exchanged. The price on the 10-year Treasury note declined, as the yield went up 0.157%.
Morgan Stanley Reduces Risk
December 31, 2008
On December 17, 2008 Morgan Stanley [MS: 30.31, +0.67 (+2.26%)] posted another loss for their 4th quarter earnings. The firm has been hit hard by losses from assets across the spectrum, and investors have destroyed the stock as it converts to a bank holding company. For the 4th quarter, Morgan Stanley reported a net loss of $2.3 billion, or $2.34 a share, compared with last year’s loss of $3.59 billion, or $3.61 a share. Although this loss is narrower than the previous year, the losses still trump the average analyst expectations of a loss of $0.34 a share, polled by Thomson Reuters. Read more
Tuesday’s Market Recap (12/30/08)
December 30, 2008
Wall Street rallied on the second to last trading day of the year as the financing arm for General Motors Corp. [GM: 0.75, 0.00 (0.00%)], GMAC, was given a $5 billion loan from the government. The three major U.S. indices ended the day higher. The Dow Jones industrial average added 2.17% and closed with 8,668 points. The Nasdaq composite index was up 2.67% and closed with 1,550 points. While the S&P 500 index rose 2.44% and finished with 890 points. The Russell 2000 index went up 3.57% and closed at 482 points. Japan’s Nikkei225 stock average gained 1.28% in its final session of the year, while Britain’s FSTE 100 rose 1.7%. Read more
Holding on in this Environment? Nike is ‘Just Doing It’
December 30, 2008
Nike [NKE: 70.38, -0.01 (-0.01%)] recently reported second quarter earnings per share of $0.80, up 13% from last year and two cents above the consensus estimate of $0.78 per share. Although some of this growth was due to currency gains and a lower tax rate, Nike is still doing arguably well in an extremely tough macroeconomic environment. Nike is a large, geographically diverse company, so in order to get a real feel for how the Swoosh is doing, we need to break down the results. Nike categorizes their units into U.S., EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Asia-Pacific, Americas, and Other Businesses. Let’s Read more
Monday’s Market Recap (12/29/08)
December 29, 2008
Monday proved to be a day of unease and uncertainty among markets, as fighting in the Middle East continued. The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 8,483 points, and lost 31 points for the day. The Nasdaq Composite index fell 19 points to close at 1,510, while the S&P 500 index declined 3 points and finished trading at 869 points. Demand for bonds increased sending prices higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury went down to 2.12% from 2.14%. In other trading, the Russell 200 index closed at 466 points after falling by 10 points. Britain’s FTSE 100 added 2.44%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 went up 0.09%. Read more
A Yahoo! Without Yang
December 29, 2008
Yahoo! [YHOO: 16.36, -0.10 (-0.61%)], a now jaded internet name, once was known as the best portal offering several services for the emerging internet population back in the mid 90s. It has now fallen off the face of the Earth. Yang’s departure, announced on November 17th, signals the end of an era, and possibly the end of Yahoo! as we know it. Anyone following the stock market news this year knows that the future of the search engine has been in limbo since early this year with Microsoft’s [MSFT: 29.37, +0.08 (+0.27%)] $30.00 per share bid that Yang brushed aside. Read more
Retailers Have a Not-So-Merry Christmas
December 27, 2008
It seems Santa had few gifts for retailers this holiday season, as December sales plummeted 4%, excluding automobiles and gasoline. Relative to last year’s gain of 2.4%, the sales drop-off is worse than industry experts had called for. Analysts believed rampant promotions and price cuts would cushion sales, and forecast anywhere from a 1% drop to a 2.2% gain. Read more
Friday’s Market Recap (12/26/08)
December 26, 2008
Markets reopened Friday with low volume that continued till close as the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up to 8,515 points, after gaining over 47 points. The Nasdaq added a little over 5 points and closed at 1,530 points. While the S&P 500 added almost 5 points and closed with 872, it seems that investor shrug off negative retail data this holiday season. Markets overseas were mixed with Japan’s Nikkei up 1.63% and Britain’s FTSE 100 down 0.93% to finish off the trading week. Read more
Will Memory Make it in 2009?
December 26, 2008
The memory chip makers have been slaughtered throughout 2008, suffering from the lack of demand that is fueling slow sales and poor margins. This observation seems to be paralleling the whole semiconductor industry that has slowed during a year of economic turmoil, however, this subgroup seems to be worse off than almost any other. The whole group of memory chip makers has been struggling to record profits as end markets are flush with products, driving down chip prices quarter after quarter. Read more
Walgreen’s Cutting Back Store Openings as Profits Slow
December 25, 2008
As the current recession continues to dig deeper into company’s bottom lines, higher costs and lower profits equals contraction rather than growth. Walgreen Co. [WAG: 34.51, +0.34 (+1.00%)] reported earnings on Tuesday and a 5 cent miss sent shares reeling throughout another tough day for Wall Street. One of the countries largest drug store companies, behind industry leader CVS [CVS: 34.93, +0.20 (+0.58%)], reported earnings the the third quarter ending on November 30 of 41 cents per share Read more
