Markets Slip, Slide on Greece — Tuesday’s IP Market Recap

by Marc Bastow | May 8, 2012 5:29 pm

[1]After a precipitous Greece-sparked drop early that saw the Dow dive nearly 200 points by midday, markets managed to pick themselves up and rally toward the end of the day to minimize total losses.

The early session drop was once again blamed on turmoil coming out of Europe[2], as the Greek government’s recently elected main-right center party was unable to form a coalition, sparking concerns that Greece might have to drop out of the eurozone. The move left Greece’s left-wing coalition — which is opposed to austerity as the means to close Greece’s debt gap — with three days to form a government.

The Dow ended down 0.59% at 12,932, led by a 2% loss in Bank of America (NYSE:BAC[3]) which announced another round of job cuts. The Nasdaq fell 0.39% to 2,946 and the S& 500 finished lower by 0.43% to 1,363.

Fast-food news did little to improve Wall Street’s mood, as both Wendy‘s (NASDAQ:WEN[4]) and McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD[5]) both slumped on disappointing news. Wendy’s announced an increase in quarterly profits but still missed analyst estimates by a fraction[6], knocking WEN shares down 4%. Meanwhile, McDonald’s announced that same-store sales were up 3.33%[7] for April, a big miss from the anticipated 4.3% mark, which led to MCD shares shedding 2%.

Cloud-computing giant Rackspace (NYSE:RAX[8]) also missed the earnings mark, as increased costs led to an 17 cents per share earnings quarter, just 1 cent below analyst estimates, but enough for nervous tech investors[9] sell the stock down nearly 9% on the day.

Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS[10]) was up 2% in after-market trading following a solid earnings announcement after the bell. DIS reported second-quarter earnings of 63 cents, up 29% from the year-ago period.

Three Up

• OfficeMax (NYSE:OMX[11]): Up 11.1% (49 cents) to $4.89.
• Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ:GMCR[12]): Up 11.5% ($2.08) to $26.38.
• Cognizant (NASDAQ:CTSH[13]): Up 7.1% ($4) to $60.30.

Three Down:

• MAKO Surgical (NASDAQ:MAKO[14]): Down 36.6% ($15.13) to $26.27.
• First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR[15]): Down 6.4% ($1.13) to $16.54.
• Blue Nile (NASDAQ:NILE[16]): Down 6.1% ($1.78) to $27.28. (Read more about Blue Nile here[17]).

Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/05/markets-slide-on-greece-tuesdays-ip-market-recap-tgt-wmt-wen-mcd-rax/

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