Stock Market Recap: Retail Stocks Lead a Mixed Market

Stocks closed mixed across the board today in lackluster trading on the heals of Bernake’s cautious posture. The DJIA closed down -44.13 to 12,832.18, the SP 500 lost -0.54 ending at 1,403.04, and the NASDAQ gained +6.64 to close at 2,495.12.

Countrywide Financial
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– Rose 4.2% to $4.99/share after Bank of America’s reports that the purchase is going forward. Bank of America
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is slightly down on the announcement.

Fluor Corporation
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– The largest public engineering firm in the US surged over 16% to 192.53 upon beating analysts profit estimates for the first quarter. This is Fluor’s biggest advance since reorganizing in 2000.

Bally Technologies
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– climbed 12% to 41.32 after the second largest manufacturer of slot machines announced projected 2009 profits may exceed analysts estimates.

Yahoo
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– added 4.7% to 26.45 on word that billionaire investor Carl Ichan may start a fight to control the board.

Gold gave up -15.30 falling to 869.60 and Oil added another 1.63 to 125.86.

Market Snapshot

Dow

-44.13 12,832.18

NASDAQ

+6.64 2,495.12

S&P 500

-0.54 1,403.04

Economic
News

Treasury Budget (Apr): Actual $159.3B, Consensus $160.0B

Export Prices ex-ag. (Apr): Consensus NA, Prior 1.2%

Import Prices ex-oil (Apr): Consensus NA, Prior 1.1%

Retail Sales (Apr): Consensus -0.2%, Prior 0.2%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Apr): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.1%

Business Inventories (Mar): Consensus 0.4%, Prior 0.6%

Core CPI (Apr): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.2%

CPI (Apr): Consensus -$0.3%, Prior 0.3%