March 7, 2014: Markets opened higher on Friday but the Nasdaq quickly turned south and spent the rest of the day in the red. As a group tech stocks were down 0.6% in mid-afternoon and shortly before closing time it looks like it could be down day for all three major indexes. In the final minutes of trading the DJIA was up 0.06%, the S&P 500 was down 0.08%, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.52%.

Today’s big decliner among the Dow stocks was The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS). The company had no news today but shares were up more than 3% over the past 5 days, so we might have been looking as a little profit-taking. Disney’s shares traded down 1.43% at $82.15 in a 52-week range of $55.76 to $83.65 just ahead of the closing bell. Volume is on track to be about 15% below the daily average of around 7.4 million shares traded.

More than offsetting the drop in Disney stock, Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) saw its share price rise 0.71% today and the stock’s high per share price carries a lot of weight on the DJIA. The stock will close at around $225.46 in a 52-week range of $155.68 to $235.50. Volume was almost 50% below the daily average of around nearly 3.4 million shares traded.

The most heavily traded Nasdaq stock today is Plug Power Inc. (NASDAQ: PLUG). The fuel cell maker has been riding a wave of buying based on its deal with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). Today, however, competitor FuelCell Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: FCEL) announced an increase in a federal contract Plug Power is getting a big coattail effect. Shares are set to close up 29.89% at $8.26 in a 52-week range of $0.15 to $8.30 (a new 52-week high today). Share volume was approaching 5-times more than the daily average of around 26 million shares traded.

Dow 30 component Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE) is up 1.36% today and traded at $79.28 in its 52-week range of $53.27 to $80.26 shortly before the closing bell. The athletic gear maker is getting a boost from a solid quarterly report by Foot Locker Inc. (NYSE: FL). Trading volume for Nike’s shares was about equal to the daily average of around 3.9 million shares.

Of the Dow 30 stocks 13 are set to close higher today while 17 are on their way to a lower close.

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