It was quite a volatile week at Wall Street that ended on Friday, 23 October, 2009. As earnings season was on full swing, economic data that checked in were mixed in nature. Earnings were better than expected in most cases helping the indices register minor weekly losses.
For the week, that ended on Friday, 23 October, 2009, The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended lower by 23.73 points (0.2%) at 9,972.18. The Nasdaq Composite Index, ended lower by 2.13 points (0.1%) at 2,154.47. S&P 500 ended lower by 16.2 points (1.5%) at 1087.68. Nine of ten sectors registered weekly losses led by materials and telecom sectors. Only technology sector managed to finish in the green.
Stocks looked initially as if they would extend the previous session's gain on the heels of positive earnings announcements from Apple, Texas Instruments, Caterpillar, Pfizer and UnitedHealth. Among these, Texas Instruments, Pfizer and United Healthcare even issued upside earnings forecasts. But a stronger dollar put a damper on things.
Third quarter earnings results remained in focus, and the list of companies that surprised to the upside this week goes on and on, including names such as Amazon.com, American Express, Apple, AT&T, Capital One, Caterpillar, McDonald's, Texas Instruments, UPS and Yahoo!. But the better-than-expected results did not translate to market gains.
Among economic reports expected for the week, The Commerce Department in US reported that housing starts rose 0.5% to an annual rate of 590,000 in September, 2009. It was much below that market forecast. Among other reports, the Producer Price Index for September made a surprise month-over-month drop of 0.6%, while core producer prices made a surprise 0.1% slip.
In the Wall Street on Friday, 23 October, 2009, weakness among stocks was widespread as a large batch of better-than-expected earnings results and an improved rate of existing home sales were shrugged off.
The Dow Jones industrial Average ended lower by 109.13 points on Friday, 23 October, 2009 at 9972.13. The Nasdaq ended lower by 10.5 points to end at 2154.8. S&P 500 ended lower by 13.3 points at 1079.7. All ten sectors ended in red led by materials.
Fed Chairman Bernanke spoke about financial system reform at a conference on Friday morning, but he didn't offer any new insight or make any original statements, so the comments had no real affect on stocks.
The only item on the economic calendar was existing home sales data for September. Home sales climbed to an annualized rate of 5.57 million from 5.09 million the month before. The upturn was stronger than had been expected, given that the consensus forecast called for an annualized sales rate of 5.35 million units in September.
Crude prices ended little lower at Nymex on Friday, 23 October, 2009. Prices fell due to the rebounding dollar. But still, prices managed to register decent weekly gains.
On Friday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for December delivery closed at $81.19/barrel (lower by $0.65 or 0.8%). Earlier during the day, it rose to a high of $81.78. For the week, crude ended higher by 3.4%. In the past two weeks, crude has climbed up by almost 20%.
In the currency market on Friday, the dollar index, which calculates the strength of the dollar against a basket of six other currencies rose by almost 0.4%. Earlier during the week, it had dropped to fourteen month lows.
For the year, The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are higher by 13.6%, 36.6% and 19.5% respectively.
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