Markets are down across the board today, as the jobs report was wildly underwhelming. Sure, headline unemployment dropped down to 8.1%, but that was largely job seekers giving up hope. The economy added 115,000 jobs, but 350,000 left the labor force. Feel the recovery!
With that in mind, let's take a closer look at how the major indexes are fared and drill down on a few stocks driving today's action.
|
Index |
Gain/Loss |
Gain/Loss % |
Intraday Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX: ^DJI) | (151.22) | (1.15%) | 13,055.37 |
| Nasdaq | (58.00) | (1.92%) | 2,966.30 |
| S&P 500 | (19.54) | (1.40%) | 1,372.03 |
Source: Yahoo! Finance.
Today's sell-off has been broad. The Dow is held up better than the other two major indexes, but all 30 components are in negative territory. Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) is currently the index's biggest decliner, off 3%, despite no real negative news. The tech sector's rough day has pushed the Nasdaq back under 3,000.
Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) isn't faring much better, with a 2.4% loss despite rumors swirling of an announcement regarding a $99 Xbox with Kinect. In the short term, the 66% price cut should impact Sony (NYSE: SNE) and its PlayStation 3's market share, but Microsoft is likely playing the long game here. Xbox currently isn't a huge part of Microsoft's business, but the coming battle will be over the television ecosystem. Most new TVs offer Internet connectivity with limited features, while systems like Playstation 3 and Xbox offer a more integrated experience. With rumors that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) is working on a television presumably linked to iTunes, Microsoft may be trying to lay an early claim to the market and get users hooked on its Xbox Live offering instead.
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