Stocks Bounce Back, Ford Falls, Employment Reports Optimistic

US Stock Indexes closed higher across the board on a lower than expected employment, ending three days of losses. The DJIA closed up by +24.43 to 12,625.62, the S&P 500 added +3.64 to 1,394.35, and the NASDAQ climbed +16.31 to 2,464.58.

Ford
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lost 8.65% or .69 cents/share to $7.12. It announced that it expected to break even later than expected in 2009 due to rising costs and fuel bills.

Dick’s Sporting Goods
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gave back 19.54% falling $5.16/share after forecasting lower than expected annual profits.

First Marblehead Corp.
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added 31.88% climbing .95 cents/share to $3.94 after analyst upgrade to “perform”.

Encore Acquisition
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– The oil and gas producer climbed 3.25% or $2.08/share after hiring Lehman as financial advisor on a sale or merger.

Oil gave back $2.62 to $130.55, Gold fell $10.30 to $918.30 and the VIX gave back 2.90% to 18.05.

Market Snapshot

Dow

+24.43 12,625.62

NASDAQ

+16.31 2,464.58

S&P 500

+3.64 1,394.35

Economic
News

Leading Indicators (Apr): Actual 0.1%, Consensus 0.0%

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

PPI (Apr): Consensus 0.4%, Prior 1.1%

Crude Inventories (Apr): Consensus NA, Prior 176K

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

Initial Claims (05/17): Consensus 372K, Prior 371K

Existing Home Sales (Apr): Consensus 4.85M, Prior 4.93M