EmailIf you're the type who likes pro football games that end with a 3-2 score, yesterday's stock market action would have had you bouncing off the walls with excitement. After six-and-a-half hours of trading, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all closed within one point of where they began Monday's session.
A trading glitch at the NYSE, the Veterans Day holiday, a lack of closure on a new round of aid for Greece, and the fiscal cliff concerns of course all garnered attention as factors keeping participants sidelined.
Oh, and lest we forget, Apple (AAPL) still couldn't get it in turnaround gear. Unable to hold early gains, its stock dipped another 0.8%; shares of AAPL are now down 22.7% from their closing high on September 19.
Today, the market is indicated to open about 0.4% lower.
The fiscal cliff concern hasn't gone away (the lame duck Congress returns today). The concerns about Greece are still present (no new aid yet and the IMF and EU are squabbling about budget cut timelines). Apple is trading 0.6% lower in pre-market action.
What's new, you ask?
Home Depot (HD) delivered a solid earnings report, beating the S&P Capital IQ consensus estimate by three cents and raising its FY13 EPS guidance above expectations.
Luxury retailers Saks (SKS) and Michael Kors (KORS) both issued earnings reports and guidance that were open for interpretation.
Microsoft (MSFT) announced that the head of its Windows unit, Steven Sinofsky, a 23-year veteran of the company, is leaving -- a move that analysts see as quite a surprise (and not a good one).
The ZEW Economic Sentiment Index in Germany was weaker than expected, slipping to -15.7 in November from -11.5 in October.
On the heels of a 0.9% decline in Q3 GDP, Japan's parliament reportedly agreed to a deal that avoided its own fiscal cliff.
Let's see. What else? Well, there's frankly a lot of noise out there.
The only clear thing right now is that there is a lot of uncertainty and that there isn't a headline today so far that is the equivalent of a game-changer.
Accordingly, we could be looking at four more quarters of 3-2 football. In a game like that, it is tough for most fans to get excited.
