The Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI) finished up 0.36% today on positive housing and employment data; however, some stocks did much better than the Dow as a whole.
Source: Google Finance.
Today's Top 3
1. Today's leader was Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), which finished up 3.07% [$1.98] to end the day at $66.42. The stock rose on news that the company plans to cut 1,600 non-manufacturing jobs by July and another 4,100 by next July. The company's goal is to reduce costs by $10 billion over the next five years. Fool analyst John Maxfield recently wrote that if he could buy only one stock his pick would be Procter and Gamble. Find out why.
2. IBM (NYSE: IBM) was second behind Procter & Gamble today, finishing up 1.93% [$3.74] to end the day at $197.61. The big news in tech today was Hewlett-Packard's terrible earnings report, and IBM was probably up on HP's weakness.
3. JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) took third for the day, up 1.10% [$0.56] to end at $38.57, followed closely by Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), which rose 0.88% [$0.07] to $8.02. Most of the banking sector was up today on positive economic news. Seasonally adjusted home prices climbed 0.7% in December, and new seasonally adjusted unemployment insurance claims remained flat at 351,000, their lowest level since March 2008. Fool blogger Chad Henage believes JPMorgan Chase is the best of the big bank stocks.
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