Commodity Carnage, Stocks Drop, Transports Rally

The energy markets breathed a collective sigh of relief, falling steeply, after Hurricane Gustav failed to deliver expected damage to the oil rich Gulf Coast. The stock market pulled back from an aggressive rally, earlier in the day, on falling energy prices and Tech company fears that the global slowdown will effect their bottom line. The transport sector bucked the bearish sentiment by rallying on the declining energy prices. The DJIA fell -26.63 to 11516.92, the Nasdaq gave up -18.28 to 2349.24 and the broad based S&P 500 dipped -5.26 to 1277.57.

Massey Energy
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– The largest coal producer in the Appalachian region followed all 39 of its energy brethren in the S&P 500 lower today, dipping 9.98% or $6.58 to $59.38/share.

Northwest Airlines
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soared 14.21% or $1.39 to $11.17/share as steeply dropping energy prices lifted the entire transportation sector.

Bank of America
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added 4.78% or $1.49 to $32.53/share after being added to a Goldman Sachs buy list. Goldman believes the bank has long term earning power.

Alcoa
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led the DJIA lower, dropping 5.20% or $1.67 to $30.46 after rumors that it may try to buy out its partner, Alumina.

Oil collapsed to lowest price since April 4th, 2008 closing down $5.16 to $110.30/barrel. Gold followed the commodity carnage down, giving up $25.60 to $809.60. The stock market fear gauge VIX climbed 6.49% to 21.99.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-26.63 11516.92

NASDAQ

-18.28 2349.24

S&P 500

-5.26 1277.57

Economic
News

Chain Deflator-Prel (Q2): Consensus 1.1%, Prior 1.1%

GDP-Prel (Q2): Consensus 2.7%, Prior 1.9%

Initial Claims (08/23): Consensus 425K, Prior 432K

Personal Income (Jul): Consensus -0.2%, Prior 0.1%

Personal Spending (Jul): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.6%

Chicago PMI (Aug): Consensus 50.0, Prior 50.8

Mich Sentiment-Rev (Aug): Consensus 62.0, Prior 61.7

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