Courtesy of John Nyaradi.
The tale of two markets continues as Spain is downgraded by S&P, economic data disappointed today and Amazon lights up the after hours.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings slashed Spain’s sovereign debt rating by two steps to BBB+ from A with a negative outlook going forward. As it has done to other countries, the agency says it’s worried about the government’s debt load as the economy continues to struggle and its banking sector remains fragile. Europe continues to sink into recession as today Britain reported quarterly economic contraction and so joins Spain, Italy and the Netherlands in the “negative growth” category.
Today’s economic data was mediocre and mixed, at best, as weekly jobless claims came in substantially higher than expectations at 388,000 new claims, indicating further ongoing weakness in the employment market, and the the Chicago Federal Reserve National Activity Index sunk -0.29 instead of posting an expected gain. The bright spot on the data front today was March Pending Home Sales which jumped 4.1% compared to last month’s 0.4%.
Finally, after hours, Amazon.com jumped double digit after hours on a well received earnings report.
During the regular session, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) added 0.67% to close back at the 1400 resistance level while the Nasdaq 100 (NYSEARCA:QQQ), which has been powered higher by Apple and Amazon in recent days, added 0.6% to settle back into recent resistance levels.
Across the pond, Spain (NYSEARCA:EWP) continued its decline, down 0.46% and down more than 15% over the last five weeks.
Bottom line: U.S. earnings remain largely positive while Europe slips into recession and continues to create global risk for financial markets.
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