Brokers, Banks Soar on Bail Out, Short Sell Limits

Friday’s rally in stocks was one of the most powerful in years, as governments moved to bail out busted banks and stop predatory short selling in injured financial names. Former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan calls the intervention a “terrible idea”, while others applaud the bold steps.

On a personal note, I have been involved in the financial markets since 1990, and have never seen such a monster short squeeze rally as witnessed over the last two days.


The DJIA advanced +370.06 to 11389.75, the Nasdaq climbed an astounding +74.80 to 2273.90, and the broad based S&P 500 surged +48.05 to 1254.66.

Citigroup
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was thrown higher by the government sponsored bank bail out plan, climbing 22.94% or $3.82 to $20.94/share.

OfficeMax
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Lehman Brother’s exposure sunk the office retailer as it fell 14.97% or $1.98 to $11.25/share.

Palm Inc.
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– The fifth quarterly loss in a row caused the PDA maker to slip 7.77% or $0.66 to $7.83.  They are losing market share to RIMM and its popular blackberry device.

Goldman Sachs
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jumped 20.19% or $21.80 to $129.80/share on the short sale ban and federal bailout.

Oil moved higher $6.70 to $104.58, gold dropped $18.50 to $878.50 and the fear index VIX only dropped 3.14% to 32.06 as the equity markets fail to shake fear despite the massive rally.

Market Snapshot

Dow

+378.52 10988.18

NASDAQ

+100.25 2199.10

S&P 500

+46.09 1202.48

Economic
News

Consumer Credit (Q2): Consensus $8.5B, Prior $11.0B

Pending Home Sales (Q2): Consensus -1.4%, Prior 5.3%

Wholesale Inventories (Jul): Consensus 0.7%, Prior 1.1%

Crude Inventories (09/06): Consensus NA, Prior -1898K

Export Prices ex-oil (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior 0.8%

Import Prices ex-oil (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior 0.9%

Initial Claims (09/06): Consensus 440K, Prior 444K

Trade Balance (Jul): Consensus -$58.0B, Prior -$56.8B

Treasury Budget (Aug): Consensus -$105.0B, Prior -$117.0B

Core PPI (Aug): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.7%

PPI (Aug): Consensus -0.5%, Prior -1.2%

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

Retail Sales ex-auto (Aug): Consensus -0.2%, Prior 0.4%

Business Inventories (Jul): Consensus 0.5%, Prior 0.7%

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Sep): Consensus 64.0, Prior 63.0

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