Monday Closing Bell: Markets Continue Downtrend

September 23, 2013: U.S. markets opened mixed on Monday continuing last Friday’s slide following a Thursday charge after the FOMC announcement that the Fed would not begin tapering its asset purchases just yet. Good Flash PMI numbers from China and Europe couldn’t outweigh remarks by New York Fed President William Dudley that economic improvement could lead to a scaling back of Fed stimulus. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) gave the Nasdaq Composite a lift when it announced that it had sold 9 million new iPhones in the first three days of availability.

Latin American markets closed mixed today, while European and Asian markets closed lower.

Tuesday’s calendar includes speeches by Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto and Kansas City Fed President Esther George and the following data releases and events (all times Eastern):

• 9:00 a.m. – FHFA house price index
• 9:00 a.m. – S&P Case-Shiller home price index
• 10:00 a.m. – Conference Board consumer confidence index
• 10:00 a.m. – Richmond Fed manufacturing index
• 11:30 a.m. – 4-week bill auction
• 1:00 p.m. – 2-year note auction

Here are the closing bell levels for Monday:

• S&P500 1,701.84 (-8.07; -0.47%)
• DJIA 15,401.38 (-49.71; -0.32%)
• NASDAQ 3,765.29 (-9.44; -0.25%)
• 10YR TNOTE 2.707% (+0.25)
• Gold $1,327.00 (-5.50; -0.4%)
• WTI Crude oil $103.59 (-1.16; -1.1%)
• Euro/Dollar: 1.3495 (-0.0054; -0.40%)

Shares of BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) were halted for about 30 minutes late Monday afternoon, prior to the announcement of an offer to take the company private for $9 a share.

There were no earnings of note before markets opened this morning. Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) reports results after markets close today. Later this week we’re scheduled to get earnings from Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL), KB Home (NYSE: KBH), Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN), Jabil Circuit Inc. (NYE: JBL), Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE), and BlackBerry Ltd.

Stocks on the Move: Apple Inc. is up 5% at $490.75. J.C. Penney Inc. (NYSE: JCP) is down 4.6% at $12.36 following reports that the company may seek to borrow more cash.

In all, 80 stocks put up new 52-week highs today, while 34 stocks posted new lows.