STOCKS FALL, DOW LOSES 110: Here's What You Need To Know
First, the scoreboard:
- Dow: 17,061.33, -111, (-0.6%)
- S&P 500: 1,986.17, -8.3, (-0.4%)
- Nasdaq: 4,516.49, -11.2, (-0.2%)
And now, the top stories on Tuesday:
1. The FHFA's July home price index showed prices rose 0.1%, less than the 0.5% expected by economists and the 0.4% that prices rose last month. Following the report, Michael Gapen at Barclays said, "The index now stands up 4.4% y/y, down from 5.1% in June and 7.8% through end-2013. The slowdown in the rate of home price appreciation in the FHFA House Price Index in 2014 has mirrored that in other national home price indices and is broadly in line with our outlook for smaller gains in home prices this year."
2. Markit's flash manufacturing PMI report for September came in at 57.9, unchanged from August and basically in-line with the 58.0 that was expected by economists. Following the report, Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said, "The flash PMI signaled another month of impressive growth of the US manufacturing economy. The third quarter as a whole has seen the strongest expansion since the sector began to recover from the financial crisis." Jesse Hurwitz at Barclays also said this report is in-line with continued a expansion in manufacturing activity during the third quarter.
3. The Richmond Federal Reserve's latest manufacturing index jumped to 14 in September from 12 in August. The report showed that shipments and volume of new orders picked up this month, and said, "Manufacturers remained optimistic about future business conditions. Survey participants expected faster growth in shipments and in the volume of new orders in the six months ahead. Producers looked for increased capacity utilization and anticipated rising backlogs. Expectations were for longer vendor lead times."
4. After crashing 10% into the close on Monday, shares of multi-level marketer regained nearly all of their losses on Tuesday. Despite the rebound in shares of Herbalife on Tuesday, Business Insider's Julia LaRoche reported that Bill Stiritz, chairman and CEO of Post Holdings, has suffered some ugly paper losses on his nearly 7.5 million share stake in Herbalife. Stiritz's stake, which is made through his personal investing vehicle, is equal to about 8% of Herbalife and has fallen $145 million this year.
5. On Monday, the Russell 2000 index completed a "Death Cross," or a technical indicator that occurs when a security or index's 50-day moving average falls below its 200-day moving average. In his morning note on Tuesday, however, UBS' Art Cashin said, "Doing this for 50 years tells me the death cross is more important to the media than to the markets."
6. The CEO of Ultrasonic, the Chinese shoe company that last week said their CEO and COO had disappeared and taken the company's money with them, kind of reappeared over the weekend. In a press release on Monday, Ultrasonic that, according to its CFO Clifford Chan, CEO Qingyong Wu called Chan over the weekend and said the money would be returned and that he would return to the company. The only problem: Ultrasonic's board has been unable to independently contact Wu.
7. The price of Bitcoin spiked higher on Tuesday following news that Bitcoin startup BitPay has announced a partnership with payments company PayPal. The price of Bitcoin spiked 12% on Tuesday to about $430.
8. Shares of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba fell again, dropping more than 3% on Tuesday, marking the second-straight full trading day of losses for the stock, which made its debut last Friday.