Merger Madness, Bulls Rule, Bank Fees

Stock market bulls ruled Wall Street today as the equity indexes surged higher although closing off the intra-day highs on late session selling. The optimism was driven by a series of major corporate mergers fueling investors risk appetite. On the banking front, news of the FDIC possibly requiring banks to prepay insurance fees as much as 3 years in advance. This could potentially have far ranging implications if instituted. The DJIA surged +124.17 to 9789.36, the tech heavy Nasdaq advanced +39.82 to 2130.74 and the broad based S&P 500 gained +18.60 to 1062.98.

Gander Mountain
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: Exploded up 33.51% or $1.28 to $5.10/share after the sporting goods retailer said it would go private by buying out stockholders.

GenTek
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: Surged higher by 39.87% or $10.76 to $37.76/share after agreeing to be purchased by American Securities.

Xerox
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: Fell 16.91% or $1.50 to $7.75/share upon revealing it was buying Affiliated Computer Services for $6.4 billion dollars.

ViroPharma
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: Climbed 11.51% or $1.03 to $9.98/share after an Oppenheimer recommendation.

Oil gained 82 cents to $67.07, gold gave back $ 2.50 to $994.10 and the fear index VIX fell 2.85% to 24.88.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

+124.17 9789.36

NASDAQ

+39.82 2130.74

S&P 500

+18.60 1062.98

Economic
News

Case-Shiller Housing Price Index (Jul): Consensus: -14.20%, Prior: -15.44%

Consumer Confidence (Sep): Consensus: 57.0, Prior: 54.1

ADP Employment (Sep): Consensus: -200K, Prior: -298K

GDP – Final (Q2): Consensus: -1.2%, Prior: -1.0%

Chicago PMI (Sep): Consensus: 52.0, Prior: 50.0

Crude Inventories(09/25): Consensus: NA, Prior: 2.85M

Personal Income (Aug): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.0%

Personal Spending (Aug): Consensus: 1.1%, Prior: 0.2%

Initial Claims (09/26): Consensus: 535K, Prior: 530K

Continuing Claims (09/19): Consensus: 6178K, Prior: 6138K

Construction Spending (Aug): Consensus: -0.2%, Prior: -0.2%

ISM Index (Sep): Consensus: 54.0, Prior: 52.9

Pending Home Sales (Aug): Consensus: 1.0%, Prior: 3.2%

Auto Sales (Sep): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Truck Sales (Sep): Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Average Workweek (Sep): Consensus: 33.1, Prior: 33.1

Hourly Earnings (Sep): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 0.3%

Nonfarm Payrolls (Sep): Consensus: -180K, Prior: -216K

Unemployment Rate (Sep): Consensus: 9.8%, Prior: 9.7%

Factory Orders (Aug): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 1.3%