Bernanke Dovish, Stocks Surge, New Homes Plummet

Investors expecting a hawkish stance from Fed Chief, Ben Bernanke, were surprised by his dovish rhetoric regarding interest rates. Stocks reacted by surging higher ignoring bearish news from the New Home Sales front. Short selling regulations were also placed into law today without causing much of a bearish reaction at the exchanges. The DJIA climbed +91.75 to 10374.16, the tech heavy Nasdaq advanced +22.46 to 2235.90 and the broad based S&P 500 marched higher by +10.64 to 1105.24.

^MU^: Climbed 5.57% or 48 cents to $9.09/share after its competitor stated it may not boost output.

^HRB^: Shares fell 12.21% or $2.41 to $17.32 after stating its forecast will not be met in fiscal 2010

^CLH^: Dropped 9.11% or $5.36 to $53.49/share after advising its profit margin will be lower.

^AIG^: Advanced 4.60% to $1.23 to $27.99/share after a Met Life plan to acquire one of its units solidified.

Oil climbed $1.26 to $80.14, gold fell $6.40 to $1097.30 and the VIX index gave back 4.87% to 20.33.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

+91.75 10374.16

NASDAQ

+22.46 2235.90

S&P 500

+10.64 1105.24
Economic
News

Case-Shiller 20-city Index (Dec): Consensus: -3.1%, Prior: -5.3%

Consumer Confidence (Feb): Consensus: 55.0, Prior: 55.9

New Home Sales (Jan): Consensus: 355K, Prior: 342K

Crude Inventories (2/19): Consensus: NA, Prior: 3.08M

Initial Claims (02/20): Consensus: 458K, Prior: 473K

Continuing Claims (02/13): Consensus: 4570K, Prior: 4563K

Durable Orders (Jan): Consensus: 1.5%, Prior: 0.3%

FHFA Housing Price Index (Dec): Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.7%

GDP – Second Estimate (Q4): Consensus: 5.7%, Prior: 5.7%

GDP Deflator – Second Estimate (Q4): Consensus: 0.6%, Prior: 0.6%

Chicago PMI (Feb): Consensus: 59.0, Prior: 61.5

U Michigan Consumer Sentiment – Final (Feb): Consensus: 74.0, Prior: 73.7

Existing Home Sales (Jan): Consensus: 5.50M, Prior: 5.45M