YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Stocks finished off their best levels as the
early morning excitment following the Spanish
auctions and better than expected earnings from Alcoa faded over the course of
the session. The Fed's latest Beige Book was released this afternoon, and
suggested that overall economic activity in the dozen Fed districts continued
to increase at a modest to moderate pace in February and early March. Reports
of consumer spending were "encouraging." However, stocks saw little
response to the Beige Book, and drifted lower over the remainder of the
session as some traders worried the good news would prevent the Fed from
implementing a third round of quantitative easing later this year.
Shares of Alcoa
(AA 9.90, +0.58) jumped 6.2% after the company posted a surprise gain of $0.10
per share for the first quarter when the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate was
calling for a loss of $0.03. Revenues climb 0.8% YoY
to $6.01 billion, and the company raised its 2012 global growth forecast for
the aerospace market three percentage points. The company also expects global
aluminum demand to grow 7% in 2012.
Nokia (NOK 4.24, -0.79) plunged
15.7% after the company lowered its first quarter devices and services
operating margin guidance to approximately -3%. This compares with the
company’s previous forecast which projected a a range of “around breakeven, ranging either above or below
by approximately 2%.” Competitive industry dynamics, particularly in
JC Penney (JCP 34.43, +1.22) gained
3.7% after announcing the departure of CFO Michael Dastugue.
COO Michael Kramer will hold the position as interim CFO until a replacement
can be found.
Banco Santander (STD 6.70, +0.19), Barclays (BCS 13.49, +0.48), and Deutsche Bank (DB 45.06, +1.56) finished off their
opening highs as traders took profits on the early surge. The strength in
European financials came after
Apple (AAPL 626.20, -2.24) lost
0.4% after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against the
company and several publishers who they say colluded to fix eBook prices.
Crude oil popped higher into positive territory on this morning's
weekly petroleum data which showed higher than anticipated draws in both
gasoline and distillate inventories. It then trended higher to reach a session
high of $103.17 per barrel before slightly pulling back and closing floor trade
with a 1.5% gain at $102.66 per barrel. After trending lower throughout the
session, natural gas sold off and settled down 2.5% at its 10-year low of
$1.98. United States Natural Gas Fund
(UNG 14.96, -0.27), the natural gas proxy ETF, is currently down 1.7%
after touching a lifetime low of $14.88 in recent trade. Gold had a lackluster
session as it traded in a fairly consolidative pattern near the unchanged line.
The precious metal moved within a narrow range between $1663.40 and $1656.80
before settling pit trade down just $0.80 at $1660.00 per ounce. Silver also
chopped around the unchanged line during early morning trade, but fell into
negative territory just before 11:00am ET. The white metal made a brief attempt
to recover losses, but ultimately closed down 0.2% at $31.52.
Treasuries ended the day off their worst levels, but still saw sizable losses
as traders dumped maturities and moved back into riskier assets. The 10-yr fell
just less than half a point and saw its yield climb four basis points to
2.028%. Today’s selling swung the yield curve steeper as the 2-10-yr spread
widened to 174.5 basis points. DJ30 +89.54 NASDAQ +25.24 SP500
+10.12 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1964/1.48 bln/549 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2429/779.4 mln/643