Best Buy, Financials Knock Wall Street off New High

Rob Lawton, CC BY SA 2.0

Best Buy, Financials Knock Wall Street off New High (Reuters)

Stocks dipped modestly through late morning from yesterday’s new highs in the wake of a big drop in shares of retailer Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), which plunged 27 percent to $27.43 after the No. 1 consumer electronics chain reported weak holiday sales and forecast a bigger-than-expected decline in quarterly operating margins. Financials stocks also weighed on the Dow and S&P indexes. Goldman Sachs (MYSE: GS) shed 1.5 percent to $176 as the biggest drag on the Dow, while Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) dropped 3.3 percent to $53.20, hurting the S&P 500. The S&P financial index lost 0.5 percent, the worst performer among the 10 major S&P sectors. After a tepid start to 2014 on concerns stock valuations may be too high after a 29.6-percent rally in the S&P 500 last year, the index rose 1.6 percent in the previous two sessions.

Paul Dykewicz

Paul Dykewicz is the editor of StockInvestor.com and the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C. He writes and edits for the website, as well as edits investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts and other reports published by Eagle. He also is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, USA Today and other publications, as well as served as business editor of a daily newspaper in Baltimore. In addition, Paul is the author of the inspirational book, "Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame's Championship Chaplain." He received his MBA in finance from Johns Hopkins University, where he was a two-time president of the school's Finance Club. In addition, Paul has a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a master's degree in journalism from Michigan State University. Outside of work, Paul volunteers with a faith-based organization to assist the poor in Southeast Washington, D.C., to learn personal finance skills to lift themselves out of debt.