Banks Advance, Stocks Mixed, Wells Fargo Concerned

Stocks closed mixed today after trading in negative territory for most of the session. Optimism of bank earning reports lifted the banking sector with Citigroup and Bank of America leading the charge. However, the last week’s favorite earnings bank, Wells Fargo, failed to participate in the rally when news of it potentially needing $50 billion dollars to cover massive loan losses and repay the Federal Government swept the news wires. The DJIA closed down -25.57 to 8057.81, the Nasdaq eked ahead by +0.77 to 1653.31 and the broad based S&P 500 advanced +2.17 to 858.73.

Limited Brands
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– Fell 3.56% or 0.38 cents to $10.29/share upon being downgraded to a hold at Citigroup.

OfficeMax
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– Was upgraded by Goldman Sachs to buy sending shares higher 18.36% or .83% to $5.35/share.

Monster Inc
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– The internet job search site was raised to a outperform by William Blair & Co sending the stock higher 12.46% or $1.31 to $11.82/share.

Yahoo
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– Jumped 7.05% or 0.95 to $14.42 upon positive sentiment regarding a search engine deal with Microsoft.

Oil fell $2.19 to $50.05, Gold climbed $12.50 to $895.80 and the fear index VIX added 3.50% to 37.81.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

-25.57 8057.81

NASDAQ

+0.77 1653.31

S&P 500

+2.17 858.73

Economic
News

Core PPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

PPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.0%, Prior: 0.1%

Retail Sales (Mar): Consensus: 0.3%, Prior: -0.1%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Mar): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.7%

Business Inventories (Feb): Consensus: -1.1%, Prior: -1.1%

Core CPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

CPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 0.4%

Empire Manufacturing (Apr): Consensus: -35.0, Prior: -38.2

Net Long-Term TIC Flows (Feb): Consensus: NA, Prior: -$43.0B

Capacity Utilization (Mar): Consensus: 69.7%, Prior: 70.9%

Industrial Production (Mar): Consensus: -0.9%, Prior: -1.4%

Crude Inventories (04/10): Consensus: NA, Prior: +1645K

Fed’s Beige Book: Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Building Permits (Mar): Consensus: 550K, Prior: 547K

Housing Starts (Mar): Consensus: 550K, Prior: 583K

Initial Claims (04/11): Consensus: NA, Prior: 654K

Philadelphia Fed (Apr): Consensus: -32.0, Prior: -35.0

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Apr): Consensus: 58.5, Prior: 57.3