Fun fact: Had the Dow Jones Industrial Average held on to its early gains Tuesday, it would’ve marked the 21st Tuesday in a row the index ended in positive territory.
However, an early-morning uptick was followed up by an afternoon drop as remarks from Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George, who is calling for the Fed to cut back its bond-buying program, led the broader indices even lower and ended the streak.
The Nasdaq led the way down, falling 0.58% to close at 3445.26, the S&P 500 closed down 0.55% to 1631.38 and the Dow shed 0.5% to finish at 15177.54.
In corporate news, shares of customer relationship software & cloud provider Salesforce.com (CRM) fell nearly 8% after the company announced it would acquire cloud marketing platform ExactTarget (ET) for $2.5 billion, or more than 50% more per share than ET’s Monday closing price.
Social game developer Zynga (ZNGA) saw its shares move nearly 2% higher following Monday’s 12% plunge after the online gamemaker said it would cut more than 500 jobs, or nearly 20% of its staff.
Dollar General (DG) shares were hammered by 9% after it lowered its profit and revenue guidance for the remainder of the year, though its Q1 earnings and sales fell mostly in line with Wall Street expectations. Sectormates Family Dollar (FDO, -2.2%) and Dollar Tree (DLTR, -1.3%) also slid back on the news.
Finally, General Motors (GM) traded higher by about 1.5% following news that the automaker will rejoin the S&P 500 at the end of trading Thursday, replacing H.J. Heinz (HNZ), which is being taken private, at the end of trading Thursday. GM was dropped from the index in 2009 during its reorganization amid the financial crisis.
Three Up
- Infinity Pharmaceuticals (INFI): Up 23.5% ($3.85) to $20.26.
- Monster Beverage (MNST): Up 10.5% ($5.64) to $59.60.
- Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF): Up 6.1% ($1.10) to $19.19.
Three Down
- Orchard Supply (OSH): Down 18% (67 cents) to $3.06.
- Zale (ZLC): Down 9.2% (76 cents) to $7.49.
- Aruba Networks (ARUN): Down 4.9% (74 cents) to $14.16.
Marc Bastow is an Assistant Editor at InvestorPlace.com. As of this writing he does not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
