The Market Is Down on a Boring Day

I have to confess that today’s a rather boring day on Wall Street. Earnings season hasn’t started yet and there’s not much in the way of economic reports or news. The stock market is down a bit today but that’s coming off Friday’s multi-year high close.

The euro has dropped to a three-week low against the dollar. The European Central Bank meets this week and traders are beginning to think they’ll cut rates. The ECB currently has interest rates at 0.75% but the European economy has been looking pretty weak lately. I’m not sure why they haven’t cut rates before.

Alcoa will be the first major company to report earnings, and that will come tomorrow. For the overall market, earnings growth is expected to improve from the third quarter which was pretty mushy.

Here’s an interesting investing story that’s come to an end today. I always say that hostile buyouts can be tricky for investors. Roche has been trying to buy Illumina for the past year. First, Roche offered Illumina $44.50 per share. They shot that down so Roche went to $51 per share. Well, they shot that down too. Now Roche has said “enough!” and they’re pulling out. Shares of Illumina are down 8% to $50. It will be interesting to see if they regret that move three years from now.

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Posted by on January 7th, 2013 at 10:52 am


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