The Opening Day Market

It’s finally Opening Day! At least for most teams.

Well, the market was supposed to go down today, but as it likes to do, the market has fooled us all. This has turned into a good day for stocks. The S&P 500 is currently up 19 points of 0.92%. Energy stocks are leading the way while Finance and Healthcare are up the least. Surprisingly, the 10-year yield is up a few basis points to 1.91%. It was as low as 1.84% this morning.

This morning we learned that the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index fell to 56.5 last month. Last week’s ISM Manufacturing report showed that the index fell for the fifth month in a row.

On our Buy List, Snap-on (SNA) and AFLAC (AFL) hit new 52-week highs this morning. Microsoft (MSFT) is up more than 3% today. Another Buy List stock, Wells Fargo (WFC), raised their rating on MSFT. The big loser is Qualcomm (QCOM). The stock was downgraded by FBR Capital. Also, a website got their hands on the Galaxy S6 and found that it doesn’t use Qualcomm’s chips.

Bloomberg has an interesting article noting that Amazon (AMZN) is luring away some of eBay’s (EBAY) loyal merchants.

Amazon’s pool of merchants climbed to more than 2 million in 2014, while the number of sellers on EBay has remained flat at about 25 million in the past two years. Businesses that at first set up online storefronts on EBay say they’re surprised how quickly sales surge on Amazon once products appear on both sites.

The move to Amazon, which boasts a bigger user base and offers more ways to ship merchandise, poses a threat to EBay, which pioneered the idea of an Internet marketplace where merchants big and small could hawk wares.

Shares of eBay are flat today.

Posted by on April 6th, 2015 at 3:25 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.