Jobs Back To His Job, Maximum Madoff, Oil Soars

Stocks rallied across the board today on positive reaction to super swindler, Bernie Madoff, receiving the maximum sentence of 150 years in prison. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, returned to his job as CEO after a liver transplant sidelined the originator and public face of the computer giant. An attack on a Nigerian oil platform sent crude soaring above $71.00/barrel today in active trading. The DJIA rallied +90.99 to 8529.38, Nasdaq eased ahead by +5.84 to 1844.06, and the broad based S&P 500 stretched higher by +8.33 to 927.23

Alcoa
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– Fell 2.97% or 32 cents to $10.44/share upon being downgraded by FBR Capital Markets.

Ball Corp
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– Was raised to outperform by Robert Baird sending shares higher by 5.53% or $2.37 to $45.26/share.

Universal American Corp
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– Goldman Sachs upgraded the firm to neutral causing shares to climb 7.27% or 58 cents to $8.56/share.

JC Penney
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– Was upgraded to overweight by Morgan Stanley triggering shares to rise 1.69% or 48 cents to $28.85.

Oil soared $2.33 to $71.47, Gold dropped $0.30 to $940.70 and the fear index VIX gave back 2.24% to 25.35

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Market Snapshot

Dow

+90.99 8529.38

NASDAQ

+5.84 1844.06

S&P 500

+8.33 927.23

Economic
News

Consumer Confidence (Jun): Consensus: 55.1, Prior: 54.9

S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index (Apr): Consensus: -18.75%, Prior: -18.70%

Chicago PMI (Jun): Consensus: 38.5, Prior: 34.9

ADP Employment Change (Jun): Consensus: -363K, Prior: -532K

Construction Spending (May): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.8%

ISM Index (Jun): Consensus: 44.0, Prior: 42.8

Pending Home Sales (May): Consensus: 1.1%, Prior: 6.7%

Crude Inventories (06/26): Consensus: NA, Prior: -3.87M

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

Truck Sales (Jun): Consensus: NA, Prior: 4.1M

Nonfarm Payrolls (Jun): Consensus: -370K, Prior: -345K

Unemployment Rate (Jun): Consensus: 9.6%, Prior: 9.4%

Hourly Earnings (Jun): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 0.1%

Average Workweek (Jun): Consensus: 33.1, Prior: 33.1

Initial Claims (06/27): Consensus: NA, Prior: 627K

Factory Orders (May): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 0.7%