Market Closes Flat As Alibaba Begins Life As A Publicly Traded Company

Alibaba BABA made its debut as a publicly traded company in the largest IPO of all time.

TD Ameritrade reported that it had more orders for shares of Alibaba prior to the stock’s open than orders for Facebook before it began trading for the first time.

Major Averages

  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 14.5 points, or 0.08 percent, to 17,281.
  • The S&P 500 fell 0.9 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,010.
  • The Nasdaq Composite sold off 13.6 points, or 0.30 percent, to close at 4,580.

Top Stories

After pricing at $68 per share, Alibaba shares opened at $92.70. $92 served as an important base throughout the day as shares bounced off the level several times. The stock closed at $93.89, 38.1 percent higher than it priced.

Yahoo YHOO was the second most closely watched stock Friday. Investors calculated the value of its stake in Alibaba and adjusted positions as shares of Yahoo moved higher and lower. Yahoo sold off sharply when Alibaba began trading, but gained some ground to end the day just 2.7 percent lower.

Caterpillar CAT gave up ground after the company reported slow North American growth and continued declines in Asia and Europe.

Home Depot HD reported that it has removed all malware from its systems late Thursday. A dollar amount was not put on expected losses, but the company warned expenses could be high.

Stock Movers

Concur Technologies CNQR shares shot up 17.6 percent to $126.82 after the company agreed to be acquired by SAP SAP subsidiary, SAP America, for $129 per share.

Shares of Dresser-Rand Group DRC got a boost, shooting up 9.4 percent to $79.91 on report of a $85 per share bid from Siemens SIEGY.

Shares of Red Hat RHT were down 4.5 percent to $57.93. Red Hat reported better-than-expected second-quarter results and raised its FY15 forecast.

Oracle ORCL was down, falling 4.2 percent to $39.80 after the company reported downbeat fiscal first-quarter results and unexpectedly shuffled its top management. Analysts at Deutsche Bank downgraded Oracle from Buy to Hold and lowered the target price from $48 to $42.

Commodities

Gold futures continued lower Friday, falling below previous support around $1,220. Contracts were last trading at $1,217.60, a 0.8 percent decline. Silver futures were hit even harder, dropping 3.4 percent to $17.88.

Unlike precious metals, energy futures finished the week mixed. WTI was last down 0.6 percent while Brent gained 0.6 percent and natural gas gave up 1.7 percent.

Global Markets

Asian markets closed the week higher. The Shanghai index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.6 percent. Japan’s Nikkei added 1.6 percent.

European markets were mixed on the day. The Euro Stoxx index, which tracks 50 eurozone blue chips gained 0.06 percent percent. London's FTSE rose 0.3 percent, and France's CAC fell 0.08 percent percent.

Currencies

The US dollar recovered Thursday’s losses to once again make a new 2014 high. The PowerShares ETF UUP which tracks the value of the greenback versus a basket of foreign currencies, gained 0.5 percent to $22.55.

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Posted In: EarningsNewsIPOsEcon #sEconomicsAfter-Hours CenterMarketsMoversGoldNatural GasOilSilver
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