每日市場點評 --- March 4, 2008

For the second time this week, the market closed well off its lows heading into close. At its worst, the Dow was down by more than 220 points. The volume was quite heavy today. There was little economic news but several corporate news grabbed investors’ attention. After the bell yesterday, Intel trimmed its gross margin estimation for the quarter citing unfavourable memory sector pricing environment. However, the worst performer in the Dow index so far this year dropped only 1 cent for the day. Cisco and Amazon, on the other hand, provided positive remarks regarding their business and both stocks reacted quite nicely. In fact, Nasdaq was the best performer among the three major indices. Financials were under pressure for most of the day until late afternoon when positive news in Ambac revived the whole sector. Commodity stocks were the biggest loser of the day as commodities were sold off sharply amid profit taking. The CRB commodity index dropped almost 2% for the day and both gold and oil were down by more than 2%. Interestingly, the VIX index didn’t spike at all even after the Dow was down by more than 200 points and it was actually closed lower for the day. Although the market bounced off nicely from its lows, we are going to face some real test tomorrow as both ADP Employment report and ISM Services survey are scheduled to be released.