It's remarkable how quickly Wall Street can flip a positive into a negative. Just a day after cheering rapid Chinese expansion, the market cited worries about increasing Chinese inflation as the reason for its unenthusiastic day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.19%) still ended on a positive note -- barely -- gaining 17 points, or 0.13%, to close at 13,488.
After slumping yesterday, Microsoft (MSFT -0.40%) came back to lead the Dow, gaining 1.4% on Friday. This week didn't see a whole lot of action from Microsoft at the Consumer Electronics Show, but Microsoft did release a video that excited some investors. The video advertises a new project called IllumiRoom, which functions with an Xbox. The product scans the room; then, during gameplay, it recreates peripheral visual aspects of the game to mimic the virtual surroundings.
It's been a tough week for Boeing (BA -0.61%), one of only two stocks in the Dow -- the other being UnitedHealth Group (UNH 0.28%)to fall in 2013. The defense contractor, plagued by a fire on an unoccupied 787 Dreamliner in Boston on Monday, was further punished by investors today. The stock fell 2.5% on news that the Federal Aviation Administration launched a review into the production and design of the new plane model.
Examining which stocks have been standouts in the first few weeks of the year, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ 1.25%) is easily distinguished as the Dow's winner. Despite slipping today, HP is up 13.4% thus far in 2013. HP was the top shipper of PCs in the fourth quarter, but the real reason for HP's comeback may simply be due to the fact that the stock was trading at depressed levels after underperforming the rest of the blue chip index in 2012.
Elsewhere in the market, shares of the volatile biopharm Dendreon (NASDAQ: DNDN) rocketed 20% higher today, on news of an analyst upgrade. Dendreon's main product, which treats prostate cancer, could drive the company to outperform this year, according to the Bernstein analyst.
