By Gavin Adamson
US markets were overtaken with a
slew of profit taking while
Canadian markets lagged today.
The Dow dropped 101.53 to
10,617.32. The S&P crept down
11.47 to 1,365.54. And Nasdaq
closed lower for the first time
in a week, down 19.05 to 3,124.92.
Analysts and traders quoted on
CBS Marketwatch said that many
institutions decided to sell off
some stock after almost a solid
week of daily run ups, especially
in Nasdaq issues. On that market,
decliners outpaced advancers today
by a margin of 21:17. On the NYSE,
decliners came on top 17:13.
Microsoft continued to
ride a down wave in the wake of
last Friday’s court judgement that
the company was using its monopoly
to stifle competition. It dropped
by US$1.69 to $88.88. A couple of
other big-name tech stocks were
downgraded slightly by analysts
today. Amazon slipped by
US$7.45 to $70.81, and Apple
Computer lost $6.75 to $89.63.
Volume was thin on the TSE,
which finished up marginally. It
rose by 4.3 to 7,292.10. Eleven of
the 14 sub-indexes closed up, with
gold and precious metals and the
oil-and-gas sectors leading the
way. Barrick Gold added
C$1.05 to $26.60, and Talisman
Energy finished up $1.25 to
$39.90. BCE was heavily
traded, and closed off by $1.25 to
$90.00.
The ME finished 19.98 higher,
to 3,829.09. The VSE was down two
points and the ASE added 13.96 to
2898.08.
Analysts in the US await the
release of the producer price
index later this week.