Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over daily movements, we do like to keep an eye on market changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 1.05%) is down 66 points, to 16,349, at 1:30 p.m. EST on news affecting its largest components. The Dow is structured as a price-weighted index, so stocks with the largest stock prices, as opposed to size, have the greatest influence on the index's movement. As such, you can get days like today when the Dow takes a significant fall and the S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.43%) moves moderately in the opposition direction -- up 20 points to 4,218.
Leading the Dow's fall is Verizon (VZ +2.25%), down 1.6%, which reported quarterly earnings earlier today that beat analyst expectations. Earnings per share came in at $0.66, versus estimates of $0.65, and revenue of $31.1 billion beat analyst projections of $31 billion.
Verizon also announced today that it will acquire Intel Media, an Internet-TV start-up. Intel Media is a subsidiary of Intel (INTC +0.33%), which along with Apple and Amazon.com was one of the companies trying to disrupt the TV market through unbundling of channels. These companies have faced stiff opposition from content companies which benefit from the status quo of users paying for channels as a bundle rather than individually.
IBM (IBM 0.87%), which is scheduled to release earnings today after the market closes, was down 0.70%. Analysts expect earnings per share of $5.99 and revenue of $28.25 billion. IBM is down after The Financial Times reported that the company is in talks to sell its commoditized server business to Lenovo. IBM has previously sold its ThinkPad business to Lenovo in an effort to focus on higher-margin products; this would be a continuation of that strategy.
