Despite the New York Giants staging another fourth-quarter Super Bowl comeback to stymie the New England Patriots, it turns out that Greece and its flagging debt negotiations take precedent over some hometown cheering on Wall Street.
After a strong showing last week, especially Friday (when tremendous improvement in unemployment was revealed), a slight breather today is hardly the end of the bull market occupying 2012. But before we dive in to Eurozone worries, let's see how exactly the three largest indices are fared in the week's last trading session.
|
|
Gain / Loss
|
Gain / Loss %
|
Ending Value
|
| Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI ) |
(17.10) |
(0.13%) |
12,845.13 |
| Nasdaq (INDEX: ^IXIC ) |
(3.67) |
(0.13%) |
2,901.99 |
| S&P 500 |
(0.57) |
(0.04%) |
1,344.33 |
Blame brinkmanship in Europe, a hangover from celebrating the Giants' victory all night, or just a day for the markets to catch their breath before continuing northward. Either way, today's market movements, while negative, were relatively inconsequential on a broader basis. However, if Greece and European leaders can't agree on a new austerity package full of painful cuts in return for additional $170 billion funding for the beleaguered Mediterranean nation, the markets will not be as forgiving.
If Greek defaults in March, one stock that would likely feel the impact is DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS ) , but the dry bulk shipper soared 16% today on good news from largely owned Ocean Rig (Nasdaq: ORIG ) . One of its semi-submersible deep-water drillers was tendered on a three-year contract worth over $650 million. But due to its ties to shipping prices, oil prices, and sovereign risk, DryShips can be a volatile security and investors should take caution before jumping in on the action.
The Dow ended up fairly mixed, with 11 of 30 components recording gains. Investors should pay attention to Disney (NYSE: DIS ) , the group's second-best performer with a 1.1% gain and an earnings report out tomorrow. Analysts expect a 4% improvement over the year-ago quarter, but Disney has topped expectations nine out of the last 11 quarters, so today's movements are likely investors betting that this trend holds.
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