Traders-Blog.com

Today, it was not a good day for the market, mainly due to a decrease in the price of oil. Oil for August for delivery ended down 77 cents to finish the session at $57.32 a barrel, which shows its lowest level in over two weeks. The Dow fell 65.84 points, to close at 10,574.99. Besides, the Nasdaq fell 11.91 points, to close at 2,144.87. Meanwhile, the S&P closed at 1,221.13, after falling 6.79 points.

Also, the main responsible for a decrease in the S&P was Citigroup Inc., which is the world’s largest financial services company. The bank fell $1.42, or 3.1 percent, to close at $45. And, the bank announced second quarter-profit of 97 cents per share, which was less than expectations. Bank of America also slipped 90 cents to close at $45.08.

Among Dow components, General Motors Corp.(GM) rose 0.6 percent, when the company named Stephen Girsky, who is a well-know auto industry analyst as special adviser to its top executives. Prior to joining GM’s team, Girsky worked at Morgan Stanley, where he was a managing director and senior analyst taking care of the firm’s auto global automotive and auto-parts research team. Besides, Girsky’s previous experience at GM was as an analyst in the company’s Treasurer’s Office.

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), announced that its second-quarter profits increased to $1.85 billion, or $1.14 per share, from $1.74 billion, or $1.01 from last year. Although sales fell 3.6 percent to $22.3 billion, the results still exceeded analysts’ expectations. After the good news, shares of IBM gained $2.79, or 3.4 percent, to finish the session at $84.60, but they had fell 57 cents to $81.81 when the U.S stock market closed today. Intel Corp., and Yahoo! Inc., will report earnings tomorrow, while Microsoft Corp., and Google Inc., will report on July 21st.

All the best,
Manuel Jesus-Backus
The Portfolio Crafter