The suddenly sluggish tech sector took a big bite out of the whole market on Thursday as each of the major indices slipped well over 1%.
Of course, the NASDAQ was hit the hardest with a decline of 2.29% (or nearly 245 points) to 10,461.42. Heading into Friday’s session, it is now down for the week by almost 42 points.
Shares of Microsoft (MSFT) dipped 4.35% in the session, despite the software giant beating quarterly earnings and revenue expectations last night.
That kicked off a domino line today that led to each of the FAANGs moving sharply lower by well over 2%. The biggest loser was Apple (AAPL, -4.55%).
If MSFT and AAPL are each down by more than 4% on the same day, it’s probably going to be a tough time for the broader market.
The Dow declined 1.31% (or about 353 points) to 26,652.33, while the S&P was off 1.23% to 3235.66. These indices snapped winning streaks of 3 days and 4 days, respectively.
The S&P is still positive for the week heading into Friday and the Dow is off by less than 20 points.
“Tech was the major source of weakness, but all-in-all the selling was relatively healthy considering the run we have seen,” said Jeremy Mullin, editor of Counterstrike.
Unfortunately, tech’s slide wasn’t the only thing souring the market today. Jobless claims came in at almost 1.42 million for last week. Not only did it miss expectations again, but it was the first time in over three months that it rose week to week.
The Dow and S&P are both on three-week winning streaks, so it’ll take a solid session tomorrow to keep it going. And it will be much tougher if technology doesn’t come along for the ride.
Let’s see what happens…
Today’s Portfolio Highlights:
TAZR Trader: The second-quarter report for Citrix Systems (CTXS) was pretty good with the cloud computing company beating on both the top and bottom lines — by over 4% and 26% respectively — while also raising its fiscal year revenue and profit outlook. And yet the stock is dropping due to a change in subscription vs. license mix, and in sympathy with partner Microsoft. Kevin sees an opportunity here to buy this irrational reaction. He added CTXS on Wednesday with a 7% starter allocation. Read the full write-up for a lot more on this stock, including the editor’s analysis of the conference call.
Surprise Trader: The last time SPX FLOW (FLOW) reported earnings, it beat by 400%! While it may be tough to do that again, this Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) does have a very healthy Earnings ESP of 76.4% for the quarter being reported before the bell on Wednesday, July 29. FLOW is a supplier of engineered flow components, process equipment and turn-key systems. Shares are up 33% since the last report. Dave thinks another beat is on the horizon, so he added FLOW on Wednesday with a 12.5% allocation. He also sold PolyOne (AVNT) today. Read the full write-up for more. The portfolio also had two of the top performers today in Netgear (NTGR, +6.8%) and Herc Holdings (HRI, +5.3%).
Home Run Investor: This portfolio easily had the best performer of the day as Chart Industries (GTLS) soared nearly 17.2% after reporting solid quarterly results. It beat earnings by more than 46% and revenue by nearly 8%. It was nearly double the runner up and came on a day when the S&P slipped by more than 1%. GTLS is now up almost 40% in the portfolio in just a little over 2 weeks.
All the Best,
Jim Giaquinto
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