The market shrugged off a ton of shaky economic data on Thursday as LinkedIn(LNKD)-inspired euphoria seemed to serve as a cure-all.
The problem is the business-oriented social networking company’s impressive debut is an impossible act to follow, and there could be a hangover for the broad market to deal with after the stock closed up more than 100%. At one point, the shares ran as high as $122.70, a gain of 170% from LinkedIn’s pricing at $45 per share.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now up about 10 points for the week so Friday’s direction is likely to determine whether the blue-chip index falls for a third straight week for the first time in 2011 or breaks the streak.
Retail investors have continued to trend toward bearishness, according to the latest American Association of Individual Investors survey, which found 41.3% of respondents fell in the bear camp for the week ended on Wednesday. That’s up 5.8% from the week before, and well beyond the long-term average of 30%.
Those identifying themselves as bullish in the survey, which draws from the organization’s 150,000 members and asks how they feel about the stock market for the next six months, came in at just 26.7%, down 4.1% from last week and far below the long-term average of 39%. The remainder of those polled identified themselves as neutral.
Thursday’s after-hours session was a busy one with disappointing results from both Gap(GPS) and Aeropostale(ARO) set against positive reports from Salesforce.com(CRM) and Foot Locker(FL).
Quarterly reports of note due on Friday are few and far between. AnnTaylor Stores(ANN) is always good for some insight into how the affluent consumer is doing, and the company has topped Wall Street’s expectations in three of the past four quarters.
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