Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Investors Business Daily
Investors Business Daily
Business
KEN SHREVE

Dow Jones Storms Off Lows After 488-Point Drop; Microsoft Rises Ahead Of Earnings, Elon Musk Secures Deal For Twitter

The Dow Jones Industrial Average turned positive in afternoon trading Monday along with the Nasdaq composite. Johnson & Johnson, American Express and Microsoft led the way  in the Dow Jones today, but Coca-Cola faded after a strong start despite a strong Q1 earnings report.

Twitter spiked 6% to 51.83 after Tesla CEO Elon Musk struck a deal to acquire the social network for 54.20 a share.

Leaderboard stock Microsoft reports earnings Tuesday after the close. The Zacks consensus estimate is for adjusted profit of $2.18 a share, up 12% from the year-ago quarter. Revenue is seen rising more than 17% to $48.96 billion.

It's a busy week of earnings from high-profile technology stocks Apple, Google-parent Alphabet and Amazon.com. All three report late Thursday.

Money flowed into bonds Monday, sending the 10-year Treasury yield lower by 1o basis points to 2.81% after hitting a low around 2.76%.

Outside The Dow Jones

A sell-off in oil and gas stocks weighed on the S&P 500, but the index reversed higher after falling 1.7% intraday. Halliburton and Schlumberger gapped below their 50-day moving averages but were off lows. The Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF also gapped below its 50-day moving average but pared losses.

Mosaic plunged more than 5% in the S&P 500 today amid broad-based weakness in the fertilizer group. After slumping nearly 8% last week, the group was down another 5% at one point Monday.

See Which Stocks Are In The Leaderboard Portfolio

Mosaic is battling for support at its 50-day moving average, along with group peers LSB Industries and Nutrien.

The Nasdaq composite also reversed higher after falling 0.9% intraday. The index slumped 3.8% last week.

Also outside the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq 100 was helped by strength in security software stocks like Zscaler, CrowdStrike, Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks.

CRWD stock found support near its 50-day moving average, but the stock's 200-day line is still a potential resistance level to watch. The leader in the group is PANW stock, which is near highs while holding support at the 50-day line. Qualys also deserves respect in the group, with the stock only 5.5% off its all-time high 150.10.

IBD's security software group was one of the day's top performers, up around 2.5%. Strength in beaten-down enterprise software stocks helped fuel the group to a gain of around 1.5%.

Meanwhile, strong showings from Kohl's and Dillard's helped lift the department store group to a gain of nearly 5%.

Inside IBD Growth Screens

Silicon Motion Technology was a top performer in the MarketSmith Growth 250, up around 10%. Early Monday, Bloomberg reported the company is considering a sale amid increased takeover interest. SIMO makes flash controllers for solid-state storage devices.

Restaurant chain Dave & Buster's also outperformed, up more than 3%. It's near the top of a yearlong consolidation pattern, only 7% off its highs.

Follow Ken Shreve on Twitter @IBD_KShreve for more stock market analysis and insight.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.