A recent bout of buying sent stocks spiking upward, but the effort has encountered headwinds and caused stocks to ease back.
Financial stocks (+1.4%) are showing some leadership after lagging in
the prior session. The sector is being led by diversified banks
(+3.0%) other diversified financial service companies (+1.9%), like
JPMorgan Chase (JPM 38.96, +1.34). Analysts at Merrill Lynch recently
increased earnings estimates for JPMorgan.
Tech (-0.7%) remains an area of considerable weakness. Intel (INTC
15.74, -0.43) is down after disclosing that current financial
conditions could have a negative impact on its operations and,
therefore, its financial condition. Sun Microsystems (JAVA 4.59,
-0.70) is down considerably after posting a worse-than-expected loss
for its latest quarter.