AGL 38.15 Decreased By ▼ -1.43 (-3.61%)
AIRLINK 125.07 Decreased By ▼ -6.15 (-4.69%)
BOP 6.85 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (0.59%)
CNERGY 4.45 Decreased By ▼ -0.26 (-5.52%)
DCL 7.91 Decreased By ▼ -0.53 (-6.28%)
DFML 37.34 Decreased By ▼ -4.13 (-9.96%)
DGKC 77.77 Decreased By ▼ -4.32 (-5.26%)
FCCL 30.58 Decreased By ▼ -2.52 (-7.61%)
FFBL 68.86 Decreased By ▼ -4.01 (-5.5%)
FFL 11.86 Decreased By ▼ -0.40 (-3.26%)
HUBC 104.50 Decreased By ▼ -6.24 (-5.63%)
HUMNL 13.49 Decreased By ▼ -1.02 (-7.03%)
KEL 4.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.54 (-10.4%)
KOSM 7.17 Decreased By ▼ -0.44 (-5.78%)
MLCF 36.44 Decreased By ▼ -2.46 (-6.32%)
NBP 65.92 Increased By ▲ 1.91 (2.98%)
OGDC 179.53 Decreased By ▼ -13.29 (-6.89%)
PAEL 24.43 Decreased By ▼ -1.25 (-4.87%)
PIBTL 7.15 Decreased By ▼ -0.19 (-2.59%)
PPL 143.70 Decreased By ▼ -10.37 (-6.73%)
PRL 24.32 Decreased By ▼ -1.51 (-5.85%)
PTC 16.40 Decreased By ▼ -1.41 (-7.92%)
SEARL 78.57 Decreased By ▼ -3.73 (-4.53%)
TELE 7.22 Decreased By ▼ -0.54 (-6.96%)
TOMCL 31.97 Decreased By ▼ -1.49 (-4.45%)
TPLP 8.13 Decreased By ▼ -0.36 (-4.24%)
TREET 16.13 Decreased By ▼ -0.49 (-2.95%)
TRG 54.66 Decreased By ▼ -2.74 (-4.77%)
UNITY 27.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.04%)
WTL 1.29 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-5.84%)
BR100 10,089 No Change 0 (0%)
BR30 29,509 No Change 0 (0%)
KSE100 94,574 No Change 0 (0%)
KSE30 29,445 No Change 0 (0%)

Stocks fell on Thursday as lackluster tech and materials earnings failed to live up to heightened expectations, threatening to short-circuit a seven-week run. Declines were milder than on Wednesday, when a sharp drop pulled the market off two-year highs. Morgan Stanley posted stronger-than-expected revenue to help the banking sector rise modestly. Morgan Stanley rose 4.6 percent to $29.02.
But F5 Networks plunged 21.4 percent to $109.15 and pulled the Nasdaq lower after the network equipment maker forecast weak second-quarter revenue. "The tug of war continued during the course of the day with techs and financials - the two big behemoths in terms of bellwethers for the market - slugging it out all day," said Joseph Benanti, managing director of Rosenblatt Securities in New York.
"We had a lot of movement on hot news that will subside. Cloud stocks are important, but they are not going to drive all technology. And the financials are a bigger sector to follow and are starting to hold their own." Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc lost 3.7 percent to $110.90 after the copper producer trimmed its sales forecast and said costs would rise. Natural resources stocks also came under pressure after data showing high growth in China stoked fears the country may need to tighten credit in order to check inflation.
The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 2.49 points, or 0.02 percent, to 11,822.80. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 1.66 points, or 0.13 percent, to 1,280.26. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost 21.07 points, or 0.77 percent, to 2,704.29. Underscoring how overbought the market has become in recent weeks, stocks failed to react to positive jobs and housing market data that pointed to a strengthening recovery.
Alcoa Inc, shed 0.5 percent to $15.98, while Exxon Mobil Corp slipped 0.6 percent to $77.75. In another example of how investors reacted to the market's elevated earnings expectations, Parker Hannifin Corp shares fell 6.1 percent to $85.51. The company, which makes industrial control systems, beat earnings forecasts, but the stock slid as investors faulted the size of the beat.
The latest data indicated that two weak spots in the US economy - housing and jobs - appear to be on the mend. US existing home sales jumped more than expected in December despite bad weather as the housing sector struggled to recover from a severe slump, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. Earlier in the day, the Labour Department reported that US initial jobless claims posted their biggest weekly decline in nearly a year.
Volume was above average with about 8.9 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, topping last year's estimated daily average of 8.47 billion. Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 18 to 11, while on the Nasdaq, 19 stocks fell for every seven that rose.

Copyright Reuters, 2011

Comments

Comments are closed.