S&P 500: +2.81 (+0.26%)
The S&P closed higher today and finished the week up 1.8%. The S&P 500 has posted weekly gains in eight of the last ten weeks. News flow was slow, but volume and volatility were a bit higher than usual due to quadruple witching options expiration, which occurs once every three months. Quadruple witching is when futures and options contracts on indexes and individual stocks all expire at the close of trading.
Defensive sectors led the market higher, with Telecom and Consumer Staples at the top of the pack. Procter & Gamble (PG) gained 3.22% as Citigroup lifted their rating on the world’s largest consumer goods company. Last Friday, PG reaffirmed earnings and said they expected to resume organic sales growth as they lower prices to take back market share from discount consumer goods.
Chevron (CVX) was one of the few gainers in the Energy sector thanks to a Credit Suisse upgrade suggesting that Chevron “looks best equipped of the Majors to deliver growth over the cycle.”
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) rose 0.96% after Stifel Nicolaus recommended buying shares citing the positive PC and enterprise server/storage demand environment.
Quick Hits
--
Peter Lazaroff, Investment Analyst
No comments:
Post a Comment