Uncertain Apple investors, including me, finally got some clarity when it comes to CEO Steve Jobs’ health. Many have been concerned that Jobs’ cancer has returned, but fortunately, his recent weight loss has been caused by a hormone imbalance. So far in 2009 shares of Apple are up almost 11%.
Money continued to flow out of the Treasury market. The 30-year Treasury yield finished the day at 3.04%, up from last Tuesday’s close of 2.58% (bond prices move opposite of yields). However, demand for short-term Treasuries remains high as seen by today’s auction of three- and six-month T-bills. The bid-to-cover ratio, which measures the demand versus supply, was 3.11 for three-month bills and 3.26 for the six-month bills. Fixed income trading desks need to put their money somewhere, and right now the
December auto sales were extremely poor, but that was not really news because the market was expecting poor numbers. GM’s sales dropped 31%, Ford’s fell 32%, Chrysler’s fell 53%, Toyota’s fell 37%, Honda’s fell 35%, Nissan’s fell 31%, and Hyundai’s fell 48%.
The energy, commodity, and material stocks were the market leaders today, while the big money center banks – JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and USB – were the laggards. AT&T and Verizon were also weak after a downgrade to “market perform.”
The Dollar rallied on reports that President Elect Obama will include $300 billion worth of tax rebates in his stimulus package. Gold finished the day down 2.5%.
Even though stocks finished the day modestly lower, there were twice as many advancers on the NYSE as decliners.
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