Stocks Rise to Record Highs

• October 5, 2007
• TradingMarkets Editors

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 rose to record highs on Friday, after a better-than-expected employment report. The Labor Department reported non-farm payrolls rose by 110,000 in September and revised August’s loss of 4,000 jobs to a gain of 89,000.

The rise came despite more bad news emerging from the financial’s. Merril Lynch [MER@MER] reported a quarterly loss (see below) and Washington Mutual [WM@WM] reported a 75% drop in net income.

Among today’s gainers, Business Objects
(
BOBJ |
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PowerRating) hit a 6-year high (read more), Guitar Center
(
GTRC |
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PowerRating) hit a 2-year high (read more) and Research in Motion
(
RIMM |
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PowerRating) hit a 6-week high (read more).

Treasuries and the U.S. dollar rose. Crude oil declined and gold advanced.

Stocks in the News

Merrill Lynch ( MER | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Forecasts Q3 Loss; to Write Down Nearly $5.5 Bln in Credit Losses (read more). Eli Lilly ( LLY | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Adds New Warnings on U.S. Product Labels for Zyprexa and Symbyax (read more). Alcoa ( A | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) Plans Sale, Restructuring of Business Divisions; Sees Charges in Q3 (read more). For more stocks on the move, go to our Breaking News section.

Market Snapshot

Dow 91.70 14066.01 NASDAQ 46.75 2780.32 S&P 500 14.75 1557.59   NYSE NASDAQ Volume 1,258,764,520 2,021,102,575 Up Volume 1,060,474,300 1,627,935,620 Down Volume 179,456,510 366,092,156 Advances 2495 2164 Declines 788 774 New Highs 257 212 New Lows 14 41

Strongest/Weakest Industry Groups

Strongest Industries % Change Weakest Industries % Change Railroads +4.26% Aerospace/Defense – Major Diversified -1.36% +4.13% Cigarettes -0.56% Trucking +3.95% Oil & Gas Equipment & Services -0.49%

Economic News

Non-farm Payrolls (Sep): Actual 110K, Consensus 100K