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Reporter
This post was written by CNBC producer Robert Hum
Stocks fell to the lows of the day this afternoon as a couple of issues weighed on the markets.
1) The U.S. dollar weakened after Moody’s warned California’s credit ratings could face a “multi-notch” downgrade if the state legislature can’t agree on a budget soon. These comments come of the heels of a similar warning made by S&P earlier in the week as the state battles its current budget shortfall.
Moody’s cautions that “the state's cash situation will deteriorate to the point where the controller will have to delay most non-priority payments in July” if the state’s $24.3 billion budget crisis isn’t resolved soon. Such a downgrade would make California ineligible for more favorable interest rates, pushing the cash-strapped state’s borrowing costs up.
2) Separately, commodity prices fell to their lows of the day, with notable profit-taking in gasoline, crude oil, and gold, and copper. This took the wind out of the stock market’s earlier leadership groups – materials and energy, which moved into negative territory on the day.
One leadership group that’s holding up again today is healthcare. Several HMO stocks are posting impressive gains for the fourth straight day on continued hopes that significant (and costly) health care reform proposals maybe dying.
Take a look at the performance of various healthcare stocks since Tuesday:
- Cigna [CI
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] up 22% - Health Net [HNT
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] up 19%
- Coventry Health Care [CVH
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] up 18%
- Aetna [AET
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] up 15%
- Humana [HUM
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] up 13%
- UnitedHealth [UNH
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] up 10%
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Questions? Comments?
- Next Week's Stars—The Retailers
- Today's Drivers: Retail and Tech
- Can Retailers Meet Those High Expectations?
- Yes, Now A Genocide-Free ETF
- What Matters Most on The Floor
- Wal-Mart And Kohl's Beat—But Cautious Outlook
- After The Bell Big Announcement: HP To Acquire 3Com
- New Highs On Lousy Volume—What's Up?
- The New Dow Target
- Wall Street Fears Dodd Bill
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes