Wall Street ends with moderate loss

CNBC's Margaret Brennan - The streak of better than expected bank earnings ended Monday and that put pressure on the Dow, which lost 24 points ending its 4 day winning streak. Tech stocks advanced though thanks to Apple and Texas Instruments, the NASDAQ gained 5 points.

After the close, the semi-conductor maker Texas Instruments beat expectations with earnings of 49 cents/share but they lowered their forecast for the second quarter, so the stock gained more than 1%, after hours.

During the active trading session, Bank of America dominated news, Bank of  America reported the first quarter earnings drop of 77% to USD 1.2 billion, shares of the bank dropped 2.5%, adding to that anxiety, word that National City is raising more than USD 7 billion in capital and flashing its dividend to just one cent per share, that’s an order to bolster its balance sheet, shares of the country’s 10th largest banks plummeted more than 27%.

The only financial stock not trading in the red today was Goldman Sachs which gained fractionally in Monday’s session. Merck’s Q1, net income surged 94% to USD 3.3 billion but investors were worried by new drug competition Merck’s shares closed down fractionally and waived on the pharmaceutical sector.

No funny games for toy maker Mattel today, the stock fell 8% after it reported a loss of USD 46 million due to litigation, high commodity costs and slowing sales but the quarter was much kinder to competitor Hasbro, which reported a higher profit of USD 37.5 million, shares of Hasbro gained more than 9%.

We saw another record high close for the price of oil, that’s not going to help out those toy makers but certainly is helping out most energy companies, crude oil rose 79 cents in Monday’s session to close at USD 117.48/ barrel, refiner bolero energy gained 2%, Exxon Mobil trading fractionally and Chevron lost just fractionally on the day.