From Briefing.com: 4:30 pm : There weren't any major headlines to digest Tuesday, leaving market participants to prepare for earnings season, which unofficially starts this evening when Dow component Alcoa (AA 7.79, -0.12) reports its latest quarterly results.
With what is expected to be another downbeat earnings season on the horizon, participants moved to take profits for the second straight session. The decision to hedge against further disappointment has led participants to send stocks 3.2% lower during the course of the past two sessions. The selling effort has also helped lock in gains registered in recent weeks; stocks are still up 22% from their March lows.
This session's losses were broad-based as more than 90% of the companies in the S&P 500 closed lower. Losses ranged from telecom's 3.7% drop to health care's 0.8% decline.
Health care's relative resilience was largely owed to strength in shares of managed health care providers (+4.3%). The group was able to rebound from weakness in prior sessions after 2010 Medicare Advantage rates turned out to be better than initially feared.
Financial stocks performed in-line with much of the broader market for almost the entire session, but a late selling effort forced the sector to close at its session low with a 3.2% loss. REITs were some of the worst performing holdings in the financial sector. Industrial REITs lost 13.2%, diversified REITs fell 11.5%, and residential REITs sank 10.5%.
The influence of financials caused the broader market to close in weak fashion.
Banks and financial services companies were at the center of weakness in Europe, where Britain's FTSE fell 1.6%, Germany's DAX declined 0.6%, and France's CAC closed 0.9% lower.
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS 7.72, -1.16) announced the United Kingdom government will take a 70% stake in RBS. The bank is also cutting 9,000 jobs during the next couple of years, according to reports.
Financial giants Mitsubishi UFJ (MTU 4.94, -0.12) and Mizuho Financial (MFG 3.86, -0.08) undercut Japan's Nikkei, which closed 0.3% lower. Hong Kong's Hang Seng slipped 0.5%.
Commodities trading was mixed as crude oil futures contracts faced selling pressure throughout the session and closed at $49.28 per barrel, down 3.5%. In contrast, June gold futures contracts closed 1.2% higher to close at $883.30 per ounce, just below its session high.DJ30 -186.29 NASDAQ -45.10 NQ100 -2.9% R2K -3.5% SP400 -3.3% SP500 -19.93 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 649/1.88 bln/2033 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 647/1.26 bln/2368
09:34 am Motorola (MOT)
In a regulatory filing, Motorola (MOT 4.69) said it expects to take a total of $229 million in charges in its fiscal first quarter related to workforce reductions and other cost reduction initiatives.
Motorola said it expects to take a pretax charge of approximately $110 million in the first quarter of 2009 related to severance costs and $13 million for other exit-related activities, including termination of contractual commitments and asset impairments.
When coupled with earlier restructuring charges, Motorola expects the pretax charge in the first quarter of 2009 to total $229 million.
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