Confidence Surges, Stress Test Stressed, Stocks Down

Stocks surged upward on positive news of the Consumer Confidence figures climbing to levels not seen since 2005; despite swine flu fears still gripping the market. However, the optimism was short lived as the Federal bank stress test revealed Citigroup and Bank of America may need additional cash to deal with toxic assets. Further stress was placed on stocks as bank CEO’s questioned the validity of the stress test itself triggering selling across the banking sector. The positive news was outweighed by the negative with the DJIA finally ended the day off by -8.05 to 8016.95, the Nasdaq dipped -5.60 to 1673.81 and the S&P 500 fell -2.35 to 855.16.

International Business Machines
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– Increased its dividend by 10% and ramped up a stock buyback program sending shares higher by 1.99% or $1.99 to $101.94.

Office Depot
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– Posted the second highest gain in the S&P 500 after turning a profit when most analysts expected a loss. Shares climbed 11.46% or 0.29 cents to $2.82/share.

XL Capital
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– Announced first quarter profit losses of 99% sending the stock down 2.36% or 0.20 cents to $8.28/share.

Coca Cola Enterprises
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– Soared to the highest intraday price since October after forecasting beating of analysts profit estimates and crushing first quarter profit projections. The stock climbed 5.09% or 0.77 cents to $15.90/share.

Gold fell $14.60 to $893.60, Oil slipped 0.22 cents to $49.26 and VIX fear index gave back 0.97% to 37.95.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

-8.05 8,016.95

NASDAQ

-5.60 1,673.81

S&P 500

-2.35 855.16

Economic
News

Consumer Confidence (Apr): Consensus: 28.8, Prior: 26.0

S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index (Feb): Consensus: -18.8%, Prior: -18.97%

GDP-Adv. (Q1): Consensus: -4.9%, Prior: -6.3%

Chain Deflator-Adv. (Q1): Consensus: 1.7%, Prior: 0.5%

Crude Inventories (04/24): Consensus: NA, Prior: +3857K

FOMC Rate Decision: Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.00%-0.25%

Initial Claims (04/25): Consensus: NA, Prior: 640K

Personal Income (Mar): Consensus: -0.2%, Prior: -0.2%

Personal Spending (Mar): Consensus: -0.1%, Prior: -0.2%

Employment Cost Index (Q1): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.5%

Chicago PMI (Apr): Consensus: 34.0, Prior: 31.4

Mich Sentiment-Rev (Apr): Consensus: 61.5, Prior: 61.9

Factory Orders (Mar): Consensus: -0.7%, Prior: 1.8%

ISM Index (Apr): Consensus: 38.0, Prior: 36.3

Auto Sales (Apr): Consensus: NA, Prior: 3.3M

Truck Sales (Apr): Consensus: NA, Prior: 3.8M