Despite Good News, The Dow Finishes Down

It was a bit of a yawner today for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI), which finished down slightly on a day that featured low post-holiday trading volume. The Dow’s drop occurred despite some good news domestically, as the ADP labor report showed that private employers added 176,000 jobs in June, well above expectations of 100,000. In addition, the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits dropped to 374,000 last week, down 14,000 and below forecasts.  

There was some stimulus news to report from Europe and China. The European Central Bank lowered its benchmark lending rate by 0.25% to 0.75%, and the Bank of England injected the British economy with another $78 million in an attempt to help jump-start the economy. China managed to catch many investors off guard when it cut some benchmark interest rates for the second time in just the past few weeks.

Investors didn’t seem terribly excited about any of these events as they look forward to tomorrow’s release of June’s U.S. jobs report. Here’s how all three indices fared on the day.

Turning to individual stocks, the hits just keep coming for JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM). The bank, still dealing with the fallout of its multi-billion dollar trading losses announced in May, was dealt another blow today, when it was subpoenaed by U.S. energy regulators to produce 25 emails that are associated with a probe which focuses on, "JPMorgan bidding practices that may have been designed to manipulate the California and Midwest electricity markets," the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in the subpoena. JPMorgan stock dropped over 4%, while Bank of America’s (NYSE: BAC) stock moved in tandem with JPMorgan’s, as is often the case, falling 3%.

McDonalds (NYSE: MCD) was one of just seven winners on the Dow today, rising 0.8%. The fast-food giant is currently the Dow’s second worst-performing stock in 2012, down 11% year-to-date. But that’s good news for potential McDonalds' investors, as now may be a good time to add this American icon to your portfolio, while it’s trading at a reasonable valuation.  

Looking outside the Dow, Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) soared over 13% today after CEO Reed Hastings said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that Netflix e xceeded 1 billion hours of streamed video in June, the first time ever the company has hit that milestone. Still, Netflix shares will need a few more huge days like today to get back to where they once were; the stock is still down 71% over the past full year.

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