Stocks slid, quitting five weeks of gains for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, on worries that efforts to keep Greece from defaulting were falling apart. LinkedIn gained more than 17%, propelled by upbeat results, but more worries about the European financial crisis weighed on the tech sector. Major tech stocks were in the red, including Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Intel. In the evening trade General Electric edged up 0.1%, bouncing back from a 1.3% decline in regular hours after its board of directors on Friday declared a quarterly dividend of $0.17 a share. Bank of America also recovered from losses and added 0.3% as it was among the several large banks that reached a $26 billion mortgage settlement with the U.S. government on Thursday. This week investors will be looking for more signs of economic recovery in data, including retail sales and housing starts, hints from Federal Reserve officials on the interest rate outlook, quarterly results from Zynga and General Motors. Greek efforts to avoid default are also in focus. Implied volatility surged 1.5% higher on huge trading volumes.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Investors to focus on U.S. data and Greece
Stocks slid, quitting five weeks of gains for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, on worries that efforts to keep Greece from defaulting were falling apart. LinkedIn gained more than 17%, propelled by upbeat results, but more worries about the European financial crisis weighed on the tech sector. Major tech stocks were in the red, including Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Intel. In the evening trade General Electric edged up 0.1%, bouncing back from a 1.3% decline in regular hours after its board of directors on Friday declared a quarterly dividend of $0.17 a share. Bank of America also recovered from losses and added 0.3% as it was among the several large banks that reached a $26 billion mortgage settlement with the U.S. government on Thursday. This week investors will be looking for more signs of economic recovery in data, including retail sales and housing starts, hints from Federal Reserve officials on the interest rate outlook, quarterly results from Zynga and General Motors. Greek efforts to avoid default are also in focus. Implied volatility surged 1.5% higher on huge trading volumes.
