Thursday, October 18, 2007

Financials Continue To Pressure The Market

The market is trading lower in early trading, after some very weak results were reported in the financial sector.

Bank of America (BAC) said profits plunged -32%, while ETrade (ETFC) and Wamu (WM) both reported weak results as well. All three of those stocks are trading lower, and weighing on the financial sector overall.

Considering financials are the biggest component of the S&P 500, this is acting as a drag on the overall market as well. It also doesn't help that oil is up again, trading near $88.50.

Also, the dollar is making fresh lows versus the Euro, and the Yen has spiked back above its 50-day. You know how much attention I have been paying to the Yen, and I think it will be hard for our market to rally at the same time the Yen is.

Asian markets were mixed overnight, with most higher, but China was sharply lower after the government made comments about arbitrage opportunities between Shanghai and Hong Kong listed shares. Also, I heard that all Internet searches in China are being directed to BIDU, and away from GOOG. Can this be true? Nice place to do biz.

If the market stays lower into the close, I will likely begin to dip my toe in the water with some of the cash I raised. Nothing aggressive, but I would like to start legging back in.

2 Comments:

At 8:39 AM, Blogger Untiedshu said...

How much longer can the market rally with financials lagging? I know tech is a good leader to have for a rally, but if the financials aren't confirming (and neither are the transports), doesn't that just make the rally that much harder to maintain?

 
At 10:51 AM, Blogger J. Kahn said...

the question might be how much longer can financials drag the mkt down? the problems there are well know, and soon to be fully priced in.

I think the market needed to correct either way, so the fact that the financials news was bad just coincided with the pullback, imo.

 

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