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Stock Market Today: Why the Sell-off Will Continue into 2013

By , Money Morning •

The stock market today is trying to end the week positive, but fears concerning the fiscal cliff and what a second term for U.S. President Barack Obama means for the markets continue to grow.

Friday, the third day of trading since President Obama was re-elected, looks to be a volatile ending to a scary post-election market. Since the election, the Dow Jones is down more than 3.5%, the S&P 500 is down 3.7% and much of Wall Street thinks this sell-off will continue.

Analysts and CEOs predict the next year to be a very rough one for stocks and the economy, and there might be nothing the president can do to stop the slide.

"Economic prospects might not have been much different if Mitt Romney had won, especially as Congress remains divided. But the subsequent weakness in equities makes sense too," Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients. "As we had anticipated, the focus has quickly moved on to the uncertainty over the 'fiscal cliff,' and perhaps back to the unsolved crisis in the euro-zone as well."

Len Tannenbaum, CEO of Fifth Street Finance Corp. (Nasdaq: FSC) warns that the Fed's efforts to boost stocks will no longer have a positive effect and markets will soon fade.

"The stock market will suffer over the 12-month period, which always happens the year after an election," Len Tannenbaum, CEO of Fifth Street Finance in New York told CNBC.

"The market has been propped up by these sugar highs," he said. "QE half-trillion a year is not sustainable in the long run. The sugar high is going to end because Barack Obama is going to raise revenue and cut entitlements. The combination of the two cannot be good for the economy."

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With bearish sentiment filling the markets, check out what today's biggest movers are doing:

  • Groupon Inc. (Nasdaq: GRPN) plunged over 25% as it missed earnings once again and many analysts have lowered their price targets to as low as $2. It is amazing how quickly and far Groupon has fallen -- a little over a year ago Groupon went public at $20 a share, and traded as high as $30 its IPO day. It now trades around $2.80.
  • SciClone Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: SCLN) is a Foster City, CA- based specialty pharmaceutical company that focuses on therapies for oncology, infectious diseases, cardiovascular, urological, respiratory and central nervous system disorders. After lowering its fiscal-year guidance for 2012, SCLN stock is down more than 25% today.
  • Adept Technology (Nasdaq: ADEP) is another top loser today, down over 26% as of noon. The Pleasanton, CA-based provider of robots and autonomous mobile solutions reported much weaker earnings for its fiscal 2013 first quarter, citing overall economic weakness.
  • Granite Real Estate Inc. (NYSE: GRP) is the one stock here that is worth a look. Even though the Toronto-based company recently released third-quarter earnings that disappointed, the company was named a top dividend stock in the latest Canada Stock Channel Dividend Rank report. Today GRP stock is down 0.5% today and close to 4% for the week and currently pays a 5.5% dividend.

By noon the markets were still positive with the Dow Jones up 24 points, or 0.20%, and the S&P 500 up 6.65 points, or 0.50%

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