Nasdaq up despite bad day for banks
THE Nasdaq rose yesterday for the 11th straight day, buoyed by solid profits from Apple and Starbucks, while disappointing bank results and declining energy shares weighed on the broader market.
The Dow Jones industrial average declined, halting a seven-day winning streak, as investors sold some of the market’s recent winners to take profits, and the S&P 500 index ended near break-even.
Apple, up 3.5 per cent at $156.74, gave the top boost to the Nasdaq a day after the iPod and iPhone maker reported a quarterly profit that beat forecasts. Starbucks, up 18.4 pe rcent at $17.39, ranked as the Nasdaq’s second-biggest gainer, after its quarterly profit also beat estimates.
Their advance helped extend the Nasdaq’s winning streak – now the longest such stretch since September 1996. Technology bellwether Apple and coffee chain Starbucks are among stocks that investors use as barometers of consumer spending trends.
Strong profits from NVR sparked a run-up in home builders’ stocks . The Dow Jones US home construction index shot up 5.2 per cent, while NVR’s stock jumped 5.4 per cent to $584.17.
“Today’s action is a relative positive in that you had some earnings come out that were good, but we are actually near the top of the range,” said Richard Sparks, senior equities analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
“There’s a kind of a pause until we get more news on both the earnings and the economic front.”
The Dow Jones industrial average shed 34.68 points, or 0.39 per cent, to 8,881.26. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dipped just 0.51 of a point, or 0.05 percent, to 954.07. But the Nasdaq Composite Index gained 10.18 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 1,926.38.
The S&P 500 briefly hit a 2009 intraday high of 959.83. But both the S&P and the Dow industrials were reined in by disappointing results from banks, including Wells Fargo, down 3.6 per cent at $24.45.
Bank of New York Mellon slid 6.2 per cent to $27.32 after the world’s largest trust bank posted a 43 per cent drop in second-quarter profit.
Profit-taking in some of the market’s recent winners, including Coca-Cola, down 2.4 per cent at $49.13, also dragged on the broader market.
International Business Machines shed 1.3 percent to $115.57, while Caterpillar slipped 2 per cent to $38.66.