Bulls Takeover, Oil Surges, Jobless Claims Fall

• October 15, 2009
• Dave Goodboy

The stock market bulls remain in solid control today as the major indexes climbed higher once again. Despite shaky earnings at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup surging oil prices lifted energy shares providing the bullish impetus. News that jobless claims fell further added to the optimistic spirit of the session. The DJIA advanced +47.08 to 10062.94, the tech heavy Nasdaq eased +1.06 higher to 2173.29 and the broad based S&P 500 climbed higher by +4.54 to 1096.56.

Charles Schwab
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PowerRating): Discount broker pioneer fell 4.77% or 92 cents to $18.36/share after being downgraded to “neutral” by Bank of America due to a SEC threatened lawsuit.

DSW Inc
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PowerRating): Advanced 13.08% or $2.31 to $19.97/share after increasing its earnings projections by almost 50% greater than the average analysts estimate.

Petsmart
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PowerRating): Climbed 8.23% or $1.93 to $25.47/share after stating it would beat earnings estimates by a penny.

Rambus
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PowerRating): Added 2.04% or 38 cents to $19.02/share upon revealing it has the backing of the U.S. International Trade Commission in its patent lawsuit against Nvidia.

Oil surged 2.40 to $77.63, gold relaxed falling $14.10 to $1051.00 and the fear index VIX collapsed another 4.99% to 21.72.

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Market Snapshot

Dow +47.08 10062.94 NASDAQ +1.06 2173.29 S&P 500 +4.54 1096.56

Economic News

Export Prices ex-ag. (Sep): Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.8% Import Prices ex-oil (Sep): Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.4% Retail Sales (Sep): Consensus: -2.1%, Prior: 2.7% Retail Sales ex-auto (Sep): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 1.1% Business Inventories (Aug): Consensus: -0.9%, Prior: -1.0% FOMC Minutes (Sep): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA Initial Claims (10/10): Consensus: 525K, Prior: 521K Continuing Claims (10/03): Consensus: 6060K, Prior: 6040K Core CPI (Sep): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.1% CPI (Sep): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 0.4% Philadelphia Fed (Oct): Consensus: 12.3, Prior: 14.1 Crude Inventories (10/09): Consensus: NA, Prior: -0.98M Net Long-Term TIC Flows (Aug): Consensus: NA, Prior: 15.3B Capacity Utilization (Sep): Consensus: 69.7%, Prior: 69.6% Industrial Production (Sep): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.8% Mich Sentiment-Prel (Oct): Consensus: 73.5, Prior: 73.5