While the indexes were down by a modest amount Monday, there continued to be interesting action under the surface. Google (GOOG) reached an all time high, bursting over the $747 which it had last seen years ago ....
.... but Apple (AAPL) fell by 1.3% (after being down over 2%) as iPhone sales were "disappointing" at 5M+ over the weekend.
This action pressured the NASDAQ of course, which was the worst performer of the major indexes with a -0.6% return for the day.
The S&P 500 performed better at -0.2% but it was a strange mix as recent laggards such as utilities and transportation stocks took the lead; the latter group was well overdue for an oversold bounce after a horrid week.
There continues to be a rotation from one group to another each and every day, hence the general indexes are not correcting much even as individual sectors take some hits.
Note that the S&P 500 finally fell back into its multi month ascending channel Monday, after seven sessions above it. The consolidation of the large move of a few weeks ago continues to be restrained and methodical.
One piece of good news is corporations are buying back an increased amount of shares versus the previous two quarters - less shares outstanding means higher earnings PER share.
- Share repurchases by companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index totaled nearly $112 billion from April through June, S&P Dow Jones Indices said on Thursday. That's up about one-third from $84 billion in the first three months of the year.
- The latest quarter's buyback total was the biggest since the $118 billion spent in last year's third quarter. Buybacks fell in the fourth quarter and in the first three months of this year, but remain historically high. They hit a record $172 billion in the third quarter of 2007.
- Cash holdings have risen steadily since the financial crisis, climbing to a record $1.03 trillion among S&P 500 companies during last year's fourth quarter. Cash slipped to $985 billion in the latest quarter due to increased spending on mergers and acquisitions, but reserves remain historically high.
