Market set to end week lower as European situation continues to rattle investors
| Stocks are poised to end the week much lower as investors continued to worry that Greece could leave the euro zone, sparking a worldwide financial crisis. MACRO NEWS: Greece officially announced that it would hold new elections on June 17. The country's second-largest party, SYRIZA, has said that it wouldn't adhere to the agreements that previous Greek governments made in order to obtain bailout funds. Meanwhile, Greeks pulled their money out of the country's banks in droves...
Also unnerving investors was the situation in Spain, whose fourth largest bank was reportedly hit with more than EUR1B of withdrawals. In a related development, Moody's downgraded its ratings on 16 Spanish banks... U.S. economic data failed to boost stocks, as jobless claims were in-line with the consensus estimate, but the index of leading economic indicators for April came in significantly below the consensus estimate.
COMPANY NEWS: Facebook (FB) launched its IPO. The stock opened at $38 and was trading at $40.15 at 2:20 PM ET... Yahoo's (YHOO) CEO resigned, and the company agreed to add three nominees made by hedge fund Third Point to its board. The company is reportedly in talks to sell a 20% stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba back to the Chinese company for about $7B, according to All Things Digital... Groupon (GRPN) reported stronger than expected Q1 results, :theflyonthewall. | |