Stock Market News for December 2, 2013 – Zacks Investment …
Technology stocks drove the Nasdaq to a 13-year high, but the Dow and S&P 500 dropped into the red on Black Friday. Both the Dow & S&P 500 had opened higher and the latter touched an intra-day high before they both closed in negative territory during a short trading session. Technology emerged as the biggest gainers among the S&P 500 industry groups on Friday, while the financial sector finished last.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) declined 0.1% to close the day at 16,086.41. The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% to finish Friday’s trading session at 1,805.81. The tech-laden Nasdaq Composite Index increased 0.4% to end at 4,059.89. The fear-gauge CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) advanced 5.6% to settle at 13.70. Total volume on the consolidated volumes on the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq were roughly 2.4 billion shares, Advancing stocks outnumbered the decliners. For 53% shares that advanced, 43% declined.
The tech-laden Nasdaq reached a 13-year high boosted by technology stocks like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN). These stocks gained nearly 1.9%, 1.4%, and 1.8%, respectively.
The technology sector was the biggest gainer among the S&P 500 industry groups on Friday. The Technology SPDR (XLK) gained 0.4%. Stocks such as eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY), Texas Instruments Incorporated (NASDAQ:TXN), International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM), QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), and MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) added 2.5%, 1.1%, 0.4%, 0.03%, and 0.1%, respectively.
Though two of the benchmarks ended in the red, the indices have shown remarkable performance on a weekly basis. The Nasdaq gained 1.7% in the week, followed by the Dow and S&P 500, which gaining nearly 0.1% each. The Dow and S&P 500 clinched their eight straight week of gains, the longest such run for the indices since January 2004 and January 2011, respectively.
Three major milestones were achieved in November. The Dow crossed 16,000 for the first time while the S&P 500 the touched 1,800 mark for the first time in its history. Finally, the Nasdaq crossed the 4,000 mark for the first time in a decade on strong housing data and positive retail earnings reports. Also, all three benchmarks were up for the straight third month as well.
On Friday, retail stocks were in focus with the start of the holiday shopping season. Many retail stores moved opening times into Thanksgiving night, expecting a large volume of consumers. Shares of Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE:BBY) gained nearly 2.4% to $40.55 and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) managed a gain of 0.1% to $81.01 on the day. On the contrary, shares of Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) declined nearly 0.8% to $63.93, despite the Black Friday, when sales are expected to rise the most
Financial stocks dropped the most among the S&P 500 industry groups and the Financials SPDR (XLF) lost 0.4%. Stocks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE:WFC), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B), Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) declined 0.5%, 0.6%, 0.04%, 0.1%, and0.3%, respectively.
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Stock Market News for December 2, 2013 – Zacks Investment …
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