Friday’s Market Recap: Technology Stocks Lead The Downward Trend

The market had a down day as investors sold out of equities to lock in the weeks gains, the Dow Jones (^DJI) closed down -1.87%. The NASDAQ (^IXIC) was down -2.63%, while the S&P (^GSPC) was down -2.03% to close at 815.94. Yields of the 10-year rose to 2.761% as prices fell. Both oil and gold contracts were down, settling at $52.38 and $925.30 respectively.

Technology led the downward trend in the market as big names Amazon (AMZN), Google (GOOG) and Accenture (ACN) all were plagued by bad news. Amazon confirmed that they were closing three of their distribution centers, and this caused investors to worry about a slowdown in sales. Amazon says that they are realigning their distribution network and that they are expanding other existing facilities. Analysts are not worried about sales of Amazon, who are up over 50% since announcing 4Q earnings. Google’s share price was down over -1.5% as they announced that they would be cutting 200 jobs from their sales force. Google said that these cuts were due to being over invested in parts of their company. Google hopes that it will be able to weather the economic downturn and emerge a stronger company since expanding into cell phones and cloud computing, from their base of internet search. Accenture fell as it released its 2Q report which said that revenue fell 6%. They also lowered full-year EPS projections from $2.67 to $2.60. The technology services and outsourcing company is down over -13% today responding to these poor projections.

Other stocks down today were energy leaders Exxon Mobil (XOM) and Chevron (CVX) who were down over -1.5%. This resulted from oil falling today as investors believe that there is too much bullish speculation about the economy driving oil prices too high. The price dropped -3.6% today fueled by worries of poor demand and high US inventories of crude. The price of oil has been very volatile and investors and energy companies alike would appreciate more stability in the market.

Today more poor economic data was released, concerning consumer spending and disposable income. Real consumer spending fell -0.2% in February, a noticeable change from the 0.7% gain in January. Real spending on durable goods fell -1.5% in February while non-durable goods spending remained the same. Inflation also had an effect in February with consumer prices rising 0.3%, causing a debate about where prices are heading. The Fed believes that there will be a downward push on prices, while others believe that deflation is unlikely. Disposable incomes fell -.4% in February. With income’s falling and spending rising the personal savings rate has decreased to 4.2%. One has to begin to wonder if we are a nation of debtors or are we just struggling to save in tough economic times?

Disclosure: The fund the author is associated with is long XOM and GOOG.

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