Stockmageddon

What a crazy day on Wall Street. Even after yesterday’s plunge, the market started off on a bad foot this morning. By 10:40 am, the S&P had lost 1.55%.

Then we suddenly rallied and closed at 1,260.34 which is a gain on the day of 0.50%. Our Buy List did even better as it gained 0.68%.

The S&P 500 finally snapped its streak of seven-straight down days. The Dow had fallen for eight straight days in a row (and the S&P 500 was only up a measly 0.09% on the day before its streak began). Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) has fallen for eight straight days. In the last two weeks, the stock market has lost a total of $1.07 trillion in market value.

Every day we’ve been getting hit with bad economic news. On Friday, it was the GDP. On Monday, it was the ISM manufacturing index. Yesterday, it was consumer spending. The bad economic news today was that the ISM service index hit its lowest level since February 2010.

There’s no big economic report due tomorrow (the initial jobless claims figure isn’t that important). But the big report will be the jobs number on Friday morning. I hope I’m not ruining your suspense when I say that it won’t be good. Wall Street is expecting a gain of 115,000 jobs. This morning, ADP said in its jobs estimate that the economy created 114,000 new jobs last month. Wall Street is getting the message. JPMorgan Chase ($JPM) cut its estimate for third-quarter growth to 1.5%.

This morning, I posted on Wright Express’ ($WXS) good earnings report and higher guidance. At least I thought it was a good report. At one point, shares of Wright were down 6.75%. Then, much like the overall market, WXS started to surge. The stock closed the day at $47.21. That’s 1.48% higher than yesterday’s close and 8.83% above today’s low. I have no idea how that makes sense, but that’s daily market activity for you.

Posted by on August 3rd, 2011 at 5:40 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.

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