Dow dropped 150, decliners over advancers nearly 2-1 & NAZ were off 140.  The MLP index crawled up to the 238s & the REIT index fell 1+ to the 328s.  Junk bond funds drifted lower & Treasuries were flattish (more below).  Oil slid below 84 & gold was off 2 to 1832.

AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)

Average credit card balances rise to more than $6,000

Clorox (CLX), a Dividend Aristocrat, revealed how much it anticipates the cyberattack that the company recently experienced will weigh on its Q1 financial performance.  Its latest update about the business impact of the cybersecurity attack came just over 2 weeks after CLX had indicated Sep that it would likely see negative financial impacts stemming from it.  CLX first informed investors about the incident, which involved "unauthorized activity" in its IT systems, back in Aug.  For Q1, it projected a year-over-year drop of 28-23% in net sales.  Preliminary Q1 expectations included its adjusted EPS to be "a loss of $0.40 to $0.00."  It linked that to the cyberattack "more than offset[ting] the benefits of pricing, cost savings & supply chain optimization," as well as it leading to "lower cost absorption in costs of products & operating expenses. Other metrics – gross margin, organic sales & diluted net EPS will see negative effects as well.  The now-contained cyberattack had brought "wide-scale disruption of Clorox’s operations, including order processing delays and significant product outages," it added. The stock sank 10.93 (8%).
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Clorox says cyberattack will impact first-quarter net sales, earnings

U.S. jobless claims increase slightly to 207,000 for the week

Stocks are meandering again while investors hope for helpful data on jobs tomorrow.

Dow Jones Industrials