Momentum waned Monday following a soaring Friday sparked by a tepid but positive employment report, even as Standard & Poor’s raised its outlook on the U.S. government’s credit rating to “stable” from “negative” and maintained the country’s AA+ rating.
The Nasdaq managed to squeeze out the only gain among the major indices, rising 0.13% to close at 3473.77. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.06% to close at 15238.59, and the S&P 500 fell a fraction to 1642.81.
Heading lower Monday were housing stocks, led by a JPMorgan downgrade of Lennar (LEN) from “overweight” to “neutral.” LEN fell more than 3%, while D.R. Horton (DRI), and Pultegroup (PHM) each declined roughly 2%.
Jumping the other way were solar stocks, which included large gap-ups in JA Solar (JASO, +13.5%), Sunpower (SPWR, +9.2%), Yingli Green (YGE, +8.5%) and Trina Solar (TSL, +7.4%).
Monday also was a busy day for M&A. Google (GOOG) made an offer to purchase privately held navigation app-maker Waze, pharmaceutical maker AstraZeneca (AZN) offered to buy privately held Pearl Therapeutics, and business and analytics company IHS (IHS) made a bid for privately held R.L. Polk.
Apple (AAPL) used its Worldwide Developers Conference event to unveil its radio service, “iTunes Radio,” and announce an update to its iOS mobile operating system. The news did little for AAPL shares, which declined fractionally, nor did it do much to move Internet radio provider and iTunes Radio adversary Pandora (P), which improved more than 2%.
Facebook (FB) stock gained about 5% after analysts at Stifel Nicolaus upgraded shares to “buy” from “hold” and noted that FB could be added to the S&P 500 next year.
Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) shares fell more than 2% after it was revealed this weekend that Edward Snowden, an employee at the management and technology services provider, admitted he was the man who leaked classified National Security Agency information about the government’s access to digital communications last week.
Finally, McDonald’s (MCD) ticked up more than 1% after it said global comparable sales rose 2.6% in May, with U.S. growth at 2.4%.
Three Up
- Lightinthebox (LITB): Up 16.4% ($2.06) to $14.59.
- Mechel OAO (MTL): Up 6.9% (20 cents) to $3.11.
- Sodastream (SODA): Up 5% ($3.59) to $76.11.
Three Down
- Orchard Supply (OSH): down 18.4% (56 cents) to $2.48.
- GameStop (GME): Down 4.8% ($1.76) to $34.99.
- Mobile TeleSystems (MBT): Down 4.1% (78 cents) to $18.22.
Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing, he was long AAPL.
