Stocks closed the shortened trading week with losses ahead as investors weighed Europe’s return to the headlines against positive weekly claims data ahead of Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report for March. Weekly jobless claims fell by 6,000 to 357,000 last week. Technology stocks finished with mostly mild gains with Apple and Microsoft among the biggest gainers. Microsoft added 1% ahead of the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone this weekend; the device is the highest-profile launch using its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Also, Dell rose 0.2% after the co. announced a deal to acquire Make Technologies. Broker Raymond James downgraded eBay to outperform from “strong buy,” citing the stock’s higher valuation. Today the market could take a hit as the Labor Department on Friday said that only 120,000 jobs were created in March, well below market expectations. Also, the unemployment rate fell to 8.2% from 8.3%, mostly because more people dropped out of the work force. This week investors will pay close attention to comments from Fed officials, including chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday, the outlook for the Chinese economy and the start of earnings season, with earnings reports from Alcoa, Google and JPMorgan in the spotlight. Implied volatility inched higher on modest trading volumes.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Earnings, Fed talk, economic data in the spotlight
Stocks closed the shortened trading week with losses ahead as investors weighed Europe’s return to the headlines against positive weekly claims data ahead of Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report for March. Weekly jobless claims fell by 6,000 to 357,000 last week. Technology stocks finished with mostly mild gains with Apple and Microsoft among the biggest gainers. Microsoft added 1% ahead of the launch of the Nokia Lumia 900 smartphone this weekend; the device is the highest-profile launch using its Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Also, Dell rose 0.2% after the co. announced a deal to acquire Make Technologies. Broker Raymond James downgraded eBay to outperform from “strong buy,” citing the stock’s higher valuation. Today the market could take a hit as the Labor Department on Friday said that only 120,000 jobs were created in March, well below market expectations. Also, the unemployment rate fell to 8.2% from 8.3%, mostly because more people dropped out of the work force. This week investors will pay close attention to comments from Fed officials, including chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday, the outlook for the Chinese economy and the start of earnings season, with earnings reports from Alcoa, Google and JPMorgan in the spotlight. Implied volatility inched higher on modest trading volumes.
