Stocks rose on a round of bargain hunting and a surge in energy sector. Materials, particularly chemical stocks, and energy sectors rose the most, gaining nearly 1% each. Of the 10 industry groups, only tech and telecoms fell. Stocks fell after data on housing, but recovered from early losses. Sales of new homes dipped 1.6% in February to a seasonally adjusted 313,000, from a slightly downwardly revised 318,000 in January, while economists had expected improving sales, at a 330,000 annual rate. Tech stocks managed to put in a mostly upbeat performance, but it was a glitch in a trading system resulting in confusion and erroneous trades of Apple and other stocks that stood out during the day’s market session. Micron Technology gave up 3.6% following the memory chip maker’s latest earnings report. This week investors will watch closely another batch of housing data, durable goods orders, manufacturing activity in the Chicago area in March, March consumer sentiment, and February consumer spending. They will also keep ears to the ground for any outlook changes ahead of first-quarter earnings reporting season, which gets going in the next few weeks. Also, earnings for Best Buy, Walgreen, Lennar are on tap for coming week. Implied volatility inched lower on moderate trading volumes.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Consumer sentiment in focus
Stocks rose on a round of bargain hunting and a surge in energy sector. Materials, particularly chemical stocks, and energy sectors rose the most, gaining nearly 1% each. Of the 10 industry groups, only tech and telecoms fell. Stocks fell after data on housing, but recovered from early losses. Sales of new homes dipped 1.6% in February to a seasonally adjusted 313,000, from a slightly downwardly revised 318,000 in January, while economists had expected improving sales, at a 330,000 annual rate. Tech stocks managed to put in a mostly upbeat performance, but it was a glitch in a trading system resulting in confusion and erroneous trades of Apple and other stocks that stood out during the day’s market session. Micron Technology gave up 3.6% following the memory chip maker’s latest earnings report. This week investors will watch closely another batch of housing data, durable goods orders, manufacturing activity in the Chicago area in March, March consumer sentiment, and February consumer spending. They will also keep ears to the ground for any outlook changes ahead of first-quarter earnings reporting season, which gets going in the next few weeks. Also, earnings for Best Buy, Walgreen, Lennar are on tap for coming week. Implied volatility inched lower on moderate trading volumes.
