Financials, Homebuilders Drag On Market

Nick Perry (Schaeffer's Investment Research) submits: Last week, we saw that the PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Fund (PBW) led a broad-based rally. This week we find the action turned lower:

click to enlarge

We have a widespread downside bias with 81% of the ETFs on my list showing a loss for the week. Housing is the weakest area while gold stocks took the lead.

Some of the bigger news stories this week, outside of the two-day filibuster from Ben Bernanke, were centered on earnings. We had reports from stocks such as Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), IBM (IBM), Juniper Networkers (JNPR), Microsoft (MSFT), Motorola (MOT), eBay (EBAY), and Yahoo (YHOO). Some of that is reflected in the chart above.

A strong report from Juniper sent the stock gapping higher and helped the PowerShares Networking Portfolio (PXQ) buck the broad-market malaise. On the other side of the coin, we have a disappointing report from Yahoo adding pressure to the Internet HOLDRS (HHH). Google also showed a drop after earnings, but the HHH doesn't include GOOG in its weightings.

Index performance this week:

Index performance year to date:

Charts: Google Finance

Comments

[Long-Short Guy]

Homebuilders are not surprising; just look at the tone here:

usmarket.seekingalpha.com/by/type/housing