Market 2018-04-09 (Merck, MON, and more)

Major indices almost lost all the early gains (as White House tried to ease trade war tension) in the late hours. The Nasdaq was up more than 2% at the session high, but closed the day with just a 0.5% advance. Market is very vulnerable these days. The selloff might be triggered by FBI action ---- raided the offices of Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Robert Mueller is getting closer to Trump. I expect Trump to stir both domestic and foreign policies in the coming days to migrate public attentions from his endless scandals.

Treasurys: 30-year +0.09%. 10-yr -0.04%. 5-yr -0.03%. TLT +0.16%.
Crude +1.97% to $63.28. Gold +0.36% to $1,340.90. UUP -0.25%.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has released Facebook (FB +0.5%) chief Mark Zuckerberg's testimony. Not much new info. Zuckerberg apologized and pledged to do more to protect users' privacy.

Syria used chemical weapon again! Trump said he will make a decision in the next 24 to 48 hours about whether to retaliate militarily as he did to a similar assault last year. “If it’s Russia, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out and we’ll know the answers quite soon,” he said. “So we’re looking at that very strongly and very seriously.” Asked if President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, with whom Mr. Trump has sought to forge a friendship, bears responsibility, the president said: “He may and if he does it’s going to be very tough, very tough. Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will, everybody will.”

Winners

MRK +5.3%, Merck's Keytruda successful in late-stage study in first-line lung cancer. Biotech has a strong day (IBB +1.8%, XBI +2.7%): NKTR +11.3%, ISRG +2.3%, EDIT +1.5%, JNJ +1.1%, AMGN +0.9%...

MON +6.3%, DoJ to allow Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto.

Semiconductor bounce back: AVGO +2.5%, A +2.4%, INTC +1.6%, AMAT +1.3%, LRCX +1.3%, CSCO +1.1%, WDC +0.9%, NVDA +0.5%...

In after-hour, Morgan Stanley upgrades Nvidia from Equal Weight to Overweight with PT $258.

Chinese Tech is doing well today: BABA +1.4%, JD +2.1%, BIDU +2.1%, NTES +2.8%, WB +3.1%, YY +2.7%, MOMO +1.1%...

USO +2.1%, COP +2.3%, APC +1.6%, CVX +1.1%...

Losers

BA -1.1%, swings from gain to loss.

TSLA -3.2%, would recall a total of 8,898 Model S vehicles in China. Also analysts do not trust the weekly production of 2000 Model 3. The real average number could be only around half of target 2500.

Homebuilders retreat, XHB -0.8%, ITB -1.1%, Home improvement: LOW -3.4%, HD -1.1%

Retailers: GPS -2.5%, M -2.2%, UA -2.4%, UAA -2.1%, FL -1.8%, NKE -0.5%, KSS -0.9%, TGT -1.1%...

KMX -2.6% continues down-trend, ORLY -2.1%.

QD -8.6%, hitting all-time low, no news.

My Trades Today

Added more QD @ $10.2

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