Retail Results Spoil the Day — Monday’s IP Market Recap

by Marc Bastow | July 16, 2012 5:18 pm

[1]All it took for U.S. stocks to open lower Monday was a surprise drop in June retail sales and some concerns over corporate earnings reports due this week. 

Meanwhile retail sales for June were weak[2], dropping 0.5% from the previous month and lower than economists’ expectations for a 0.2% increase. Nearly every sector took a hit, from furniture and electronics shops to gas stations and sporting goods stores.

Citigroup (NYSE:C[3]) didn’t do much to assuage investors, opening the day announcing lower second-quarter revenues and earnings[4] compared to last year, though earnings per share came in better than expected.

Investors scared off by the retail and earning news fled to U.S. treasury securities, as the 10-year note fell to a record low 1.44% before settling in at 1.46% by day’s end.

All was not a total loss, though, as the Dow managed to climb back from just under 12,700 at the start to finish down 0.39% at 12,727. The Nasdaq finished down 0.4% at 2,896, while the S&P 500 rallied to finish down 0.23% at 1,354.

M&A was alive and kicking Monday. GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK[5]) upped the ante in its buyout bid[6] for biopharmaceutical company Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ:HGSI[7]) to $14.25 per share, with HGSI accepting. The biotech’s stock jumped 4.5% in response, while GSK rose less than 1% on the news. Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer (NYSE:PFE[8]), Teva (NYSE:TEVA[9]) and Roche (PINK:RHHBY[10]) all were up more than 1% on the heels of the GSK agreement.

Shares of financial services companies Visa (NYSE:V[11]) and MasterCard (NYSE:MA[12]) gained more than 2% after announcing the settlement of a antitrust case with merchants over the weekend.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK[13]) shares fell more than 2% after announcing it was slashing the price of its smartphone[14] in the United States. The cost of the Lumia 900 will drop to $49.99 as NOK tries to catch up with the more popular Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL[15]) iPhone and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG[16]) Android models. Good luck with that[17].

Tuesday looms large on the earnings front, as Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW[18]), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS[19]), Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO[20]) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ[21]) all report before the open, and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC[22]), Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO[23]) and CSX (NYSE:CSX[24]) all report after the bell.

Three Up

• SuperValu (NYSE:SVU[25]): Up 6.9% (16 cents) to $2.48.
• First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR[26]): Up 5.9% (83 cents) to $15.
• Sprint (NYSE:S[27]): Up 4.2% (14 cents) to $3.47.

Three Down

• Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (NASDAQ:GMCR[28]): Down 8.9% ($1.76) to $17.94.
• Facebook (NASDAQ:FB[29]): Down 7.8% ($2.39) to $28.33.
• Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN[30]): Down 4.1% (59 cents) to $13.61.

Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing he is long INTC.

Source URL: https://investorplace.com/2012/07/mondays-ip-market-recap-c-hgsi-gsk-v-ma/

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