Stocks on Wednesday made a hasty retreat from Tuesday’s rally thanks to worries from Europe — and for the Dow, additional pain from IBM (NYSE:IBM).
The Dow closed down 83 points to 13,032, a 0.65% decline. The Nasdaq fell 11 points (0.37%) points to close at 3,031, while the S&P 500 gave up 7 points (0.41%) to finish at 1,385.
Worries over Europe — in particular Spain — cropped up once again, as the Spanish government shared concerns that there may be more problems lurking in the portfolios of Spanish banks, enhancing worries the government might require a bailout. European markets reacted by selling Spanish stocks, causing the overall market to fall ahead of the U.S. markets.
Markets were not encouraged by decent revenue and earnings reports from Intel (NASDAQ:INTC, more here) and IBM (more here) after the close Tuesday. IBM finished the day down 3.5%, its 12% weighting in the Dow Jones Industrial Average dragging the index down. Meanwhile, Intel dropped almost 2%.
Taking a severe beating Wednesday was energy giant YPF (NYSE:YPF). After news that it was being seized by the Argentine government, YPF suffered a 10%-plus loss Monday before trading was suspended, then sunk another 32% Wednesday as trading resumed. YPF now is down more than 60% year-to-date.
Investors looking for signs of life in the market tomorrow got mixed results after the bell, as American Express (NYSE:AXP), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) and Qualcom (NASDAQ:QCOM) all reported improved revenues and earnings, but got mixed reviews on the news.
Ebay enjoyed one of the biggest post-market parties. Ebay’s first-quarter profit was $725 million (55 cents per share) compared with $619 million (47 cents per share) in the year-ago period. Revenue was up 29% to $3.3 billion. Investors were cheered by eBay’s news, as shares rose 5% to $36 per share in early after-hours trading.
QCOM reported that its second-quarter net increased to $2.23 billion ($1.28 per share) from $999 million (59 cents per share) in the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP earnings of $1.01 per share topped Thomson Reuters estimates of 96 cents per share. Despite the good news, shares were down more than 3% in after-hours trading.
Quarterly net income at AXP rose to $1.26 billion ($1.07 a share) from $1.18 billion (97 cents) a year earlier, beating Bloomberg analyst EPS estimates of $1.01. After hours shares were trading down 54 cents on the news.
Three Up:
- Catalyst Health Solutions (NASDAQ:CHSI): Up 34% ($21.69) to $85.23.
- United Rentals (NYSE:URI): Up 11.83% ($4.84) to $45.75.
- Western Digital (NYSE:WDC): Up 5.19% ($2.05) to $41.56.
Three Down:
- Genworth Financial (NYSE:GNW): Down 23.77% ($1.83) to $5.87.
- First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR): Down 7.00% ($1.61) to $21.35.
- Cree (NASDAQ:CREE): Down 6.05% ($1.93) to $29.97.
Marc Bastow is Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace. As of this writing, he was long INTC.
