Stock Market Close

Posted: February 28, 2008 at 5:16 pm by Chuck

Oil, n. gas, gold and energy were the big leaders today. Pretty much everything else was in the red. I see this as a kind of panic. The whole market isn’t selling off, traders are simply piling into these "defensive" stocks again. The market is now pricing in a 35% chance of the Fed’s cutting 75bps at the next meeting. If oil prices do not come down, I don’t see a 75bps cut at all. Actually, Bernanke as much as admitted he didn’t know what the hell they were going to do if oil doesn’t pull back. Yea, instill some more confidence in the investing public.

The Dow was in the red all day and closed down 114 at 12580. Telecom’s Verizon and AT&T carried the Dow, or it would have been worse. The XLF (financial ETF) closed right at the low of the day.

On the earnings front, we have DELL:

Dell reports Q4 $0.31 V $0.36E, R$16B V $16.2BE and still doing the buyback

AIG report comes in a few. Will post it when I get it.