US stocks remain down, although they’re sharply off the lows with only 30 minutes remaining in today’s session.
Hard to pinpoint exactly what’s driving today’s move. Technology leading the declines a day after Apple’s (AAPL) iPad announcement. Jobless claims and durable goods reports also came in below expectations. S&P 500 up held at support around 1080, so there’s that to consider as well.
But, as Tom Petruno points out, it just seems investors are finding more reasons lately to sell rather than motivation to buy. And issues overseas may be the biggest factors driving this recent slide. From LA Times’ Money & Co blog:
Europe may be the bigger worry at the moment. Stocks were broadly lower there today amid more signs of contagion from Greece’s financial woes. Investors continued to demand sharply higher yields on Greek government bonds, even though the country successfully borrowed more than $11 billion early this week via five-year notes to give itself more breathing room.
All of these factors are contributing to this recent slide, as the Dow has lost nearly 6% of its value throughout the last two weeks.
With major indexes still up more than 60% off their early-March lows, a correction of some sort was expected. So maybe this pullback shouldn’t be pinpointed on any specific reasoning, but just the overall ebb and flow of the market in general. Paul hit the nail on the head in the previous post:
On another level, though, this selloff is about resetting expectations after year in which most folks were content to be told things were getting less bad. And that issue will remain no matter where indexes finish today.
On the bright side, Dow industrials have regained much of their earlier losses. Earlier today the Dow broke below its 10100 support level. But Bespoke Investment Group says it wasn’t a reason to panic because part of the recent jitters due to the tax proposals President Obama stated in his State of the Union speech last night.
Investors shouldn’t get too worried about these plans, firm says, since it’ll be tough to get them passed into law.
“In the current political environment, it’s going to be hard for Congress to implement anything that will be interpreted as a hit to the economy, especially in an election year,” Bespoke says. “So if the market is falling because of tax proposals, it’s likely to be short lived since the likelihood of actual passage is low.
DJIA off 80 at 10159.
