Stocks finished higher, but the gains were limited as investors weighed an upbeat U.S. economic report against Europe's ongoing debt problems. The ISM Services index for May surprisingly rose to 53.7, while economists had predicted the index would fall to 53.1 from April's 53.5. Meanwhile, the Spanish banking system teeters on the edge of collapse and Greece comes closer to a possible exit from the euro. Standard & Poor's said that there is a one-in-three chance Greece will leave the euro currency union in the coming months. Tech stocks extended gains as most sector leaders held on to their gains, with advances coming from of Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. H-P rose 2.94 and Oracle gained almost 2% a day after H-P’s breach of contract suit against Oracle got under way in California state court. H-P is seeking as much as $4 billion from Oracle after the co. said it would no longer make new versions of its database software to run on Intel’s Itanium server chip sets. SanDisk rallied 5.5% after Pacific Crest Securities initiated coverage of the co. with an outperform rating. Facebook hit a new low of $25.75, sliding more than 30% below the IPO price of $38, on reports that the co. is looking at ways to allow children younger than 13 to use the site. Implied volatility inched lower on very light trading volumes.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Finished higher on upbeat data
Stocks finished higher, but the gains were limited as investors weighed an upbeat U.S. economic report against Europe's ongoing debt problems. The ISM Services index for May surprisingly rose to 53.7, while economists had predicted the index would fall to 53.1 from April's 53.5. Meanwhile, the Spanish banking system teeters on the edge of collapse and Greece comes closer to a possible exit from the euro. Standard & Poor's said that there is a one-in-three chance Greece will leave the euro currency union in the coming months. Tech stocks extended gains as most sector leaders held on to their gains, with advances coming from of Hewlett-Packard and Oracle. H-P rose 2.94 and Oracle gained almost 2% a day after H-P’s breach of contract suit against Oracle got under way in California state court. H-P is seeking as much as $4 billion from Oracle after the co. said it would no longer make new versions of its database software to run on Intel’s Itanium server chip sets. SanDisk rallied 5.5% after Pacific Crest Securities initiated coverage of the co. with an outperform rating. Facebook hit a new low of $25.75, sliding more than 30% below the IPO price of $38, on reports that the co. is looking at ways to allow children younger than 13 to use the site. Implied volatility inched lower on very light trading volumes.
