Retailers extended their hours and offered sharply discounted deals in order to attract shoppers on Black Friday, the first shopping day after the Thanksgiving holiday. The Dow edged up 3 points to 8729 while Nasdaq dropped 11 points to 1521.
On the upside
Most retailers reported brisk Black Friday traffic, but analysts warned about the overall holiday sales scenario. Shares of Sears Holdings (Nasdaq: SHLD) and Gap (NYSE: GPS) edged higher.Investor and board member Carl Icahn bought nearly 7 million additional shares of Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) bringing his total stake to 75.6 million or 5.5% of the Internet portal.
Shares of Cooper Industries (NYSE: CBE) edged higher despite an analyst warning of slowing growth in demand for its electrical products and tools.
On the downside
Online retailers prepared for Cyber Monday, many offering special deals and free shipping options which may cut into margins. Shares of Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Blue Nile (Nasdaq: NILE) edged lower.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) registered to issue and sell up to $1.8 billion of stock.
Oil shipper Frontline (NYSE: FRO) posted higher revenues, but its profit results missed expectations. Meanwhile, the company reported the need of additional funds to complete a full financing of its new vessel building commitment.
In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of 10 to 9 on the NYSE and by nearly 3 to 2 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks lost 6 points to 462.