Huge Pharma Deal, Stocks Sink, Bank of America Success

Despite a day full of good news, stocks continued the downward trend, shrugging off the air of optimism. A huge pharmaceutical deal amounting to over $41 billion dollars was announced between Merck and Schering Plough energized the MA space. Financials were boosted by the success of Bank of America’s sale of $8.5 billion dollars of FDIC insured debt. However, the indexes closed down on the day with the DJIA losing -79.89 to 6547.05, the Nasdaq gave back -25.21 to 1268.64 and the S&&P 500 dropped -6.85 to 676.53.

Bank of America
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– Led the DJIA in gains surging 18.47% or 0.59 cents to $3.73/share after the successful sale of debt.

General Motors
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– Added 16.55% or 0.24 cents to $1.69/share upon reaching an agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers Union.

AFLAC
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– Fell the most in the S&P 500 losing 14.21% or $1.91 to $11.53/share after being downgraded by UBS.

StemCells Inc
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– Obama raised the federal limits on research resulting in shares rocketing 43.48% or 0.60 cents to $1.98/share.

Gold fell $24.70 to $918.00, Oil added $1.55 to $47.12 and the fear VIX index added 0.71% to 49.68.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-79.89 6547.05

NASDAQ

-25.21 1268.64

S&P 500

-6.85 676.53

Economic
News

Wholesale Inventories (Jan): Consensus: -1.0%, Prior: -1.4%

Crude Inventories (March 06): Consensus: NA, Prior: -757K

Treasury Budget (Feb): Consensus:-$200B, Prior: NA

Initial Claims (March 07): Consensus: 640K, Prior: 639K

Retail Sales (Feb): Consensus: -0.4%, Prior: 1.0%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Feb): Consensus: -0.2%, Prior: 0.9%

Business Inventories (Jan): Consensus: -1.1%, Prior: -1.3%

Export Prices ex-ag. (Feb): Consensus: NA, Prior: 0.0%

Import Prices ex-oil (Feb): Consensus: NA, Prior: -0.8%

Trade Balance (Jan): Consensus: -$38.2B, Prior: -$39.9B

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Mar): Consensus: 56.3, Prior: 56.3