From Briefing.com: 4:35 pm : The best monthly jobs report in four years couldn't keep sellers from sending stocks to their fourth straight loss, which contributed to the stock market's worst weekly performance in one year.
Despite persistent weakness overseas amid continued contagion concerns, stocks managed to attract some modest support as some speculated that a rebound may be in order after the stock market sank some 6% during the course of the three previous sessions. The worst of that loss came Thursday, when the Dow's intraday drop of almost 1000 points was blamed on the failure of computerized trades and electronic networks. In response, both the NYSE and Nasdaq cancelled trades from a 20 minute time block that saw prices greater than or less than 60% away from the consolidated last print price.
However, stocks were unable to sustain the early bid. News that nonfarm payrolls for April surged 290,000, the largest increase since March 2006, couldn't even secure support for stocks.
As an aside, the headline unemployment rate climbed to 9.9% from 9.7% as a result of workers re-entering the workforce.
With sellers reaffirming control, stocks were unable to make anything more than a few upward charges, each of which proved fruitless in the face of resistance.
Heavy volume to the downside made for widespread weakness. As such, nearly 90% of the names in the S&P 500 logged losses and declining share volume on represented 85% of the NYSE's total trading volume, which surpassed 2 billion shares for the second straight session. Volume on the NYSE has not broken 2 billion shares in back-to-back sessions in more than one year. What's more, neither of those two sessions have been options expirations sessions.
Such steep losses amid such heavy volume has caused volatility to spike to its highest level in more than a year. The Volatility Index settled this session roughly 25% higher.
The heightened volatility has given support to gold, which closed this session at $1213 per ounce, up 1.3% for the session. Gold prices actually set a new 2010 high of almost $1215 per ounce earlier in the session.
Treasuries failed to secure support, though. The benchmark 10-year Note fell several ticks, such that its yield moved back above 3.40%.
Meanwhile, the stock market booked its worst closed in two months. That contributed to a weekly loss of more than 6%, which makes for the stock market's worst weekly slide in one year.
Advancing Sectors: (None)
Declining Sectors: Tech (-2.3), Industrials (-2.1%), Consumer Discretionary (-1.9%), Energy (-1.5%), Health Care (-1.4%), Materials (-1.3%), Financials (-1.2%), Telecom (-0.6%), , Utilities (-0.6%), Consumer Staples (-0.5%) DJ30 -139.89 NASDAQ -54.00 NQ100 -2.3% R2K -2.9% SP400 -2.5% SP500 -17.27 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 577/4.11 bln/2115 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 887/2.41 bln/2229
10:22AM Apple: Nokia sues Apple in Wisconsin for infringement of Nokia patents (AAPL) 237.67 -8.62 : Nokia (NOK) filed a complaint against Apple alleging that Apple iPhone and iPad 3G products infringe five important Nokia patents. The patents in question relate to technologies for enhanced speech and data transmission, using positioning data in applications and innovations in antenna configurations that improve performance and save space.
2:55AM On The Wires : United Microelectronics (UMC) reports unaudited net sales for April 2010 increased 35.51% year/year to NT9.32 bln; month/month sales declined 1.69%... AU Optronics (AUO) reports preliminary consolidated April 2010 revenue increased 68.9% year/year to NT$41,154 mln; revenue increased 1.2% from March 2010... Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASX) reports unaudited consolidated net revenues for April 2010 increased 139.8% year/year to NT$14.67 bln; sequential change was -7.5%.
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