It was a good week to be a bull. U.S. markets stayed positive through most of the week as investors cheered progress on addressing the debt crisis in Europe and strong economic reports at home. Capping the week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that 243,000 jobs were added in January, far more than economists were expecting. Rising payrolls helped knock the unemployment rate down to 8.3%.
By the time the dust had settled, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
The 3 Worst-Performing Sectors
Russell 3000 Sector |
Weekly Price Change |
Month-to-Date Price Change |
---|---|---|
Utilities | 0.4% | 0.5% |
Consumer Staples | 1.2% | 1.6% |
Energy | 1.6% | 2.8% |
Source: S&P Capital IQ. Weekly price change is Jan. 27-Feb. 3. Monthly price change is Jan. 31-Feb. 3.
Long-suffering biotech MannKind
MannKind wasn't the only company that watched its shares fizzle after new funding announcements. Shares of oil and gas explorer Hyperdynamics
The 3 Worst-Performing Russell 3000 Companies
Company |
Weekly Price Change |
---|---|
MannKind | (33.8%) |
Hyperdynamics | (28.8%) |
RadioShack | (26.9%) |
Source: S&P Capital IQ. Weekly price change is Jan. 27-Feb. 3. Includes only companies with market caps of $250 million or more.
Also among the week's worst performers were SandRidge Energy
Polypore, meanwhile, saw its shares go into freefall after former customer LG Chem announced that it's going into Polypore's business and becoming a competitor. That alone would have been bad enough, but once again the analysts piled on here, with DA Davidson downgrading the stock, while both Axiom Securities and Wunderlich initiated the stock with a sell rating. Though the stock finished the week with a 17% loss, the pain relented on Wednesday, when the shares showed they still had some bounce in them.
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