If you're long the market, Wednesday was the kind of day that you live for. Stocks climbed higher across the board. Maybe you were like me, clicking on your Motley Fool My Portfolio tab only to be greeted by a sea of smiling green faces.
It was a pretty broad rally. Even the obscure had their day. All 10 of the stocks I had singled out in my two- part10 Stocks Under $10 article last month rose, and those are odd speculative beasts that make a habit of marching to the beat of rhythmically impaired drummers.
While market breadth will probably never be unanimous, it's interesting to note that the day's biggest loser on the New York Stock Exchange was MasTec
Yet things are always a bit wilder over the counter. Maybe you're not doing much of a happy dance if you owned shares in Central Freight
In Carreker's case the carnage is earned. The financial services company posted a slump in fiscal-year revenues and warned that things will get worse through the first half of the year.
Central's truck stop was not as simple to decode. The company had announced a $10 million acquisition that would sting the trucker in the current quarter. Bad news? Hardly. Even if it were perceived as bad news, it certainly wouldn't merit Central giving up $90 million in market capitalization.
No, the problem here is that the buyout was a bit of a smoke screen. It wasn't the only reason that Central was watering down its guidance. Deep into the fourth paragraph of the press release was the troubling fact that the company also suffered a significant drop in interline revenue through its system.
Rivals in a pricing war? That could get ugly. The market's smackdown on Central's shares? Overdone, perhaps, but the gesture seems warranted.
Yes, it was a great day to be long the market yesterday -- and a sorry one to be wrong in.
Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz knows that all his days won't be green smiley ones. He does not own shares in any company mentioned in this story.
