As the brutal political negotiations regarding the avoidance of the fiscal cliff wage on, the markets seem to sell off with each day that brings us 24 hours closer to the dreaded New Year's deadline. An unenthused Wall Street sold off the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.85%) today, and the index closed down 13 points, or 0.11%, to finish at 12,951.
Still, the negativity wasn't enough to do in shares of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 0.71%), which rocketed more than 5% higher Tuesday. Shares in the PC-maker have taken quite a nasty haircut this year, falling more than 45% as slowing sales and, more recently, expensive writedowns have put HP between a rock and a hard place. The stock has been extremely volatile in the past number of weeks, and today it continued its wild ride.
Intel (INTC 0.30%) shares also outperformed today, spiking more than 2%. The rally was fueled by reports that the company had plans to issue low-yielding debt to buy back some of its own stock, which is trading around 16-month lows.
The biggest news out of the Dow today came from entertainment bellwether Walt Disney (DIS 0.34%), which announced an exclusive deal with online video streaming service Netflix (NFLX 0.43%). The two companies agreed to terms that allow Netflix to air all Disney live action and animated movies as soon as they're released. Although that deal won't begin until 2016, it's still a major move for Netflix, which only yesterday fell 7% after a discouraging Wall Street Journal article. With the added bonus of Disney's newly acquired Star Wars franchise included, Netflix shares soared 14% today.
