Today was a pretty boring day when looking at the boarder markets. Coming off a week that should be described as anything but boring, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
Macro news also came in mixed today. On the negative side, Spain's borrowing costs rose above 6% for the first time since before the European Central Bank began intervening in global debt markets, indicating that investors still have their doubts about the viability of austerity plans in one of Europe's largest economies. On the brighter side of things, U.S. March retail sales grew by 0.8%, coming in just shy of the 1% gains seen in February. This further bolsters the case that a strengthening consumer can continue to fuel the slow recovery in the United States, despite recent headwinds such as rising gas prices.
Around the market
Tech-specific stocks took a drubbing today. On the Dow, tech stocks represented three of the six stocks that fell in value during the trading session. After leading the Dow with a rare 6.3% gain last week, personal-computer juggernaut Hewlett-Packard
Similarly, both Cisco Systems
Most surprisingly, Apple
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