The Dividend Daily

The nature of the market action today was not for the faint of heart. Lots of spikes and dips and little else to be able to get your arms around.

Volume finished on the busy side with 5.34 Billion shares traded on the NYSE and 2.36 Billion shares on the Nasdaq. We started the day with the usual long list of earnings reports. There were some good dividend plays and then some not-so-hot plays. Let’s start with the positives. Wall Street liked the reports from BP plc (BP), PartnerRe (PRE) and then had some positive commentary for Lorillard (LO) as a possible takeover play. That helped that stock recover a chuck of what it lost yesterday. Other plays that did well today also included NewMarket Corp (NEU) and Chevron (CVX).

As for the area of the market where things didn’t go so well. Disappointing earnings reactions were in full swing for the likes of U.S. Steel (X), Valero (VLO), Johnson Controls (JCI) and Franklin Resources (BEN). Other names lagging the action, were Union Pacific (UNP), Deere (DE), Metlife (MET), and Nucor (NUE). Oil (USO) and Treasury (TLT) prices closed near the highs of the day, while Gold (GLD) prices were basically unchanged.

We made some recommendation changes to our “Best Dividend Stocks” list today, so be sure to check out the post if you did not read the e-mail alert we sent out earlier.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks, as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here.