A Very Quiet Day on Wall Street
On a slow day for economic news, or really any hot news pertaining to the markets, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 5 points, or 0.03%, while the S&P 500 rose by 3 points, or 0.19%, and the Nasdaq increased by 0.42%.
One reason the Nasdaq jump higher was the 2.38% move Apple made today. The one technology stock makes up nearly 7% of the Nasdaq, since the index is weighted. The main catalyst of Apple's move was the raised price target to $525 per share by Barclays.
And while the index rose higher based on one stock's movement, the same could be said for the Dow today. Shares of IBM , which fell by 0.85%, and since it is the heaviest-weighted component of the blue-chip index (weighing more than 10% of the Dow), the Dow followed suit. Shares of IBM have been on a roller-coaster ride over the past few weeks. While they were up 5.25% this past week, they had fallen more than 10% just three weeks ago. Year to date, shares are only up 5.86%, and even though IBM has a 1.9% dividend yield, the Dow has easily produced a better return since it has risen 14.23% in 2013.
Another Dow loser today was Verizon . Shares fell 1.2% as some of the company's largest shareholders expressed their opinions on the possible Vodafone buyout. Verizon's 10th largest shareholder, Columbia Management Investment's portfolio manager Craig Leopold said he believes Verizon will likely pay more than the $100 billion that has been suggested as the initial offer price. Leopold feels the final sale price will be more in the range of $130 billion, but would love to see Verizon pay more like $120 billion. The idea that Verizon would pay even $100 billion seemed unthinkable to some shareholders, but now that the possible price has risen upwards of $130 billion, shareholders are likely to continue fleeing the stock for fear of how that amount of debt will affect the company.
Lastly, shares of Intel lost 0.21% even though the stock was upgraded this morning by RBC Capital. The firm stated that due to improving prospects in the mobile computing industry, shares of Intel were raised from "sector perform" to "outperform." While an upgrade should be seen as a positive thing, investors may feel RBC's reasoning for the upgrade is still in the works and Intel's prospects in the mobile market are still small and somewhat unproven at this time.
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The article A Very Quiet Day on Wall Street originally appeared on Fool.com.
Fool contributor Matt Thalman owns shares of Apple. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Apple and Intel. It also owns shares of IBM. Check back Monday through Friday as Matt explains what caused the Dow's winners and losers of the day and every Saturday for a weekly recap. Follow Matt on Twitter: @mthalman5513. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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