The stock market retreated today, pulling back from Wednesday's record highs as investors assumed a more cautious tone, bidding bonds higher. "Cautious" probably isn't the best way to describe Wall Street's attitude toward E*Trade Financial Corporation (ETFC +0.00%), KeyCorp (KEY +1.81%), and Micron Technology (MU +4.04%), as the three stocks ended near the bottom of the S&P 500 Index (^GSPC +1.46%) today. The S&P, for its part, lost 8 points, or 0.5%, to end at 1,888 today.
Shares of E*Trade Financial Corporation logged 3.4% losses today, as the discount broker reported a slump in daily average revenue trades, or DARTs. The company reports stats monthly on metrics ranging from the number of its brokerage accounts to overall customer security values, but April's numbers did not impress. DARTs slumped 13% from March's figures, lowering the expectations of E*Trade investors in the process.
Wednesday was tough for the financial sector, which took a 0.8% haircut today. KeyCorp joined E*Trade as one of the many underperforming financial stocks of the day, shedding 3.3%. KeyCorp, which is a regional U.S. bank operating in the Midwest, saw shares slump as analysts at Nomura initiated coverage of the stock with a "neutral" rating and a $14 price target. Interest rates ticked lower today, creating headwinds for regional banks like KeyCorp, which hold variable-rate loans that turn larger profits when rates advance.
Source: Micron Technology website
Lastly, shares of Micron Technology dipped 2.8% today as it lost its spot as the world's number two DRAM chip maker. Micron, which makes its bread and butter in the dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, market, saw its global market share eclipsed by the South Korea-based SK hyinx, according to specialty research firm DRAMeXchange. While that's not good news for Micron, the research outfit also reported that, despite giving up market share, Micron's global DRAM revenue in the first quarter was second only to Samsung. Micron stock remains near 52-week highs, which it reached yesterday.
