-214.28 Points

Yuck! What a rotten birthday.
Let’s look at the damage. The Dow dropped a total of 214.28 points, the biggest loss in three years. Twenty-nine of the thirty Dow stocks fell. Only Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) gained ground.
The S&P 500 lost 21.77 points, or 1.68%. In percentage terms, this was the second-worst day for the S&P 500 since September 2003 (Janaury 20 of this year was the worst). The Dow Oil and Gas Index (^DJUSEN) lost 12.23 points (or 2.60%) to close at 458.01.
Our Buy List lost -1.42%. The 20 stocks are now up 0.05% for the year. Here’s how our stocks did:

Ticker Company Name Profit/Loss
AFL AFLAC -2.02%
BBBY Bed Bath & Beyond -2.37%
BMET Biomet -1.50%
BRO Brown & Brown -2.21%
DCI Donaldson -0.25%
DELL Dell -0.63%
DHR Danaher -2.07%
EXPD Expeditors -1.85%
FDS FactSet Research -1.73%
FIC Fair Isaac -3.39%
FISV Fiserv -2.17%
GDW Golden West -1.12%
HD Home Depot -1.14%
HDI Harley-Davidson -0.97%
MDT Medtronic -0.38%
RESP Respironics -0.23%
SEIC SEI Investments -1.28%
SYY Sysco -0.80%
UNH UnitedHealth -0.26%
VAR Varian Medical -3.87%

There are 100 Dow Jones industry groups. Today, 98 were down. The only two industries that were up were Health Care Providers (^DJUSHP), which includes UnitedHealth; and Computer Hardware (^DJUSCR), which includes Hewlett-Packard.
The culprit for today’s sell-off was the higher-than-expected inflation report. The CPI rose 0.6% in April, and core prices rose 0.3%.
Here’s a look at the CPI and the core CPI for the past few years.
cpi.gif
Perhaps it’s me, but I don’t see what’s so scary.

Posted by on May 17th, 2006 at 4:02 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.