All 10 sectors lost ground this week, with industrials and financials showing the heaviest losses. Surprisingly, consumer discretionary stocks outperformed on a relative basis.
Geopolitical issues, including poor Chinese economic data and Israel raiding an aid flotilla, sent stocks lower at the open Tuesday. Selling pressure in BP (BP) following its announcement that the "top-kill" procedure to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was unsuccessful caused weakness in the energy sector, giving investors another excuse to sell stocks.
However, the market regained Tuesday's decline on Wednesday as the energy sector rebounded from oversold conditions and the major averages experienced a late-session surge (for a change).
On Friday, though, the market gave back all of its previous gains and then some as default fears in Hungary caused investors to dump riskier assets and look to the safe haven of Treasuries. The 10-year Treasury yield dropped from 3.37% to 3.20%. The debt fears also sent the euro to fresh 4-year lows, falling below 1.2000.
This week's economic data had a major impact on the direction of the market.
On Wednesday, the major averages extended their gains following a better-than-expected number for pending home sales. The Briefing.com consensus was looking for a gain of 4.3%, but the actual number came in at 6.0%. While it appears to show strength in the housing market, the results are skewed as investors look to purchase homes before the deadline for the homebuyer tax credit.
Looking ahead to next week's data, the key releases will be the Fed's Beige Book on Wednesday as well as Retail Sales and Michigan Sentiment on Friday. There will also be another round of Treasury auctions next week.
Index | Started Week | Ended Week | Change | % Change | YTD % |
DJIA | 10136.63 | 9931.97 | -204.66 | -2.0 | -4.8 |
Nasdaq | 2257.04 | 2219.17 | -37.87 | -1.7 | -2.2 |
S&P 500 | 1089.41 | 1064.88 | -24.53 | -2.3 | -4.5 |
Russell 2000 | 661.61 | 633.97 | -27.64 | -4.2 | 1.4 |
No comments:
Post a Comment