Stocks finished mostly lower as data showed that weekly jobless claims fell to 359,000 last week, with the level a bit higher than expected. Also, U.S. real gross domestic product for the fourth quarter rose at a 3.0% annualized rate, unrevised from an earlier estimate. Best Buy sank 7% after the co.’s 2012 revenue outlook fell short of expectations. Technology stocks mostly slumped, following a broader market downturn. Meanwhile, Red Hat rose 20% after the distributor of the Linux operating system reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded estimates and said it would repurchase $300 million of its shares. EBay was down a fraction after the co. announced a new head of its PayPal division to replace Scott Thompson, who left earlier this year to take the CEO post at Yahoo. In the evening trade Research In Motion was down 2.8% after the company said fourth-quarter adjusted earnings were $0.80a share and revenue fell 25% to $4.19 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.81 a share on revenue of $4.54 billion. Implied volatility inched lower on massive trading volumes.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Extended losses on lackluster economic reports
Stocks finished mostly lower as data showed that weekly jobless claims fell to 359,000 last week, with the level a bit higher than expected. Also, U.S. real gross domestic product for the fourth quarter rose at a 3.0% annualized rate, unrevised from an earlier estimate. Best Buy sank 7% after the co.’s 2012 revenue outlook fell short of expectations. Technology stocks mostly slumped, following a broader market downturn. Meanwhile, Red Hat rose 20% after the distributor of the Linux operating system reported fourth-quarter results that exceeded estimates and said it would repurchase $300 million of its shares. EBay was down a fraction after the co. announced a new head of its PayPal division to replace Scott Thompson, who left earlier this year to take the CEO post at Yahoo. In the evening trade Research In Motion was down 2.8% after the company said fourth-quarter adjusted earnings were $0.80a share and revenue fell 25% to $4.19 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $0.81 a share on revenue of $4.54 billion. Implied volatility inched lower on massive trading volumes.
