Stocks had a mixed session with the industrials having a good day and technology taking it on the chin. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell more than 1% in its worst performing day since August 17. The weakness was obvious when looking at the “FANG” stocks – namely Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX), and Google parent Alphabet (GOOG) – which pulled back from their highs in what looked like a round of profit taking. Bitcoin was the story of the day as the cryptocurrency moved above $10,000 for the first time, accelerated to then top $11,000, but then reversed and was trading back below $10,000 near 4 pm ET. ECONOMIC EVENTS: In the U.S., the Commerce Department raised its estimate of gross domestic product expansion in the third quarter, increasing its growth estimate to a 3.3% annual rate from a previous estimate of a 3.0% pace in the July-September period. An index of pending home sales bounced 3.5% to 109.3 in October, which was better than expected. In cryptocurrency news, bitcoin rocketed past $11,000 a matter of hours after hitting the $10,000 per coin milestone. However, it was not able to hold either round number level for long, slipping back under $10,000 by the time the stock market closed. In Fed news, the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book repeated growth was “modest” to “moderate,” with slight improvement in the overall outlook. COMPANY NEWS: Amazon confirmed in a press release that Cyber Monday was the single biggest shopping day worldwide in the company’s history, surpassing Prime Day 2017. The e-commerce giant also announced a number of partnerships for its cloud services unit AWS, including with big names such as Disney (DIS) and the National Football League. However, shares of the “FANG” member slid nearly 3% amid the broader weakness in tech stocks… Shares of Chipotle (CMG) jumped almost 6% after the company announced it had begun to search for a new chief executive officer. Once the search is compete, Chipotle founder Steve Ells said he will focus primarily on innovation while staying involved as the executive chairman. MAJOR MOVERS: While marquee tech stocks, some of this year’s biggest winners, were pulling back, a number of names in the beaten-down retail space outperformed, including Macy’s (M), Target (TGT) and Nordstrom (JWN). Among the noteworthy losers was Autodesk (ADSK), which dropped 16% after its Q3 earnings report. Also lower amid the volatility and significant media focus on bitcoin were two names that recently have been tied to the cryptocurrency, as Overstock.com (OSTK) slid almost 10% and Square (SQ) dipped 8%. INDEXES: The Dow rose 103.97, or 0.44%, to 23,940.68, the Nasdaq lost 88.02, or 1.27%, to 6,824.34, and the S&P 500 slipped 0.97, or 0.04%, to 2,626.07.
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