Stocks Crank Higher, Gold Crushed, Lehman Confusion

Stocks cranked higher today after a severe sell off yesterday on bargain hunting in energy names and Lehman Brothers talking about resizing, spinning off divisions and full scale asset sales in an apparent last ditch effort to survive. The DJIA closed up +38.19 to 11268.92 in a choppy, erratic session. The Nasdaq climbed +18.89 to 2228.70 and the broad based S&P 500 added +7.53 to 1232.04.

Imclone Systems
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climbed 6.90% or $4.39 to $68.04 after a $6.1 billion takeover offer from an undisclosed source.

Salesforce.com
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jumped 7.60% or $3.96 to $56.06/share after being chosen to replace Fannie Mae in the S&P 500.

CFI Group
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tumbled 24.45% or $2.35 to $7.26/share as the interdealer broker of credit derivatives failed to complete a merger with a competitor.

Las Vegas Sands
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fell 10.84% or $4.48 to $36.84/share on slower business due to consumers not spending as much money in casinos.

Gold was crushed down $33.10 to $758.90/oz, oil fell another .14 cents to $103.12 and the VIX index fell 7.30% to 25.93.

Market Snapshot

Dow

+38.19 11268.92

NASDAQ

+18.89 2228.70

S&P 500

+7.53 1232.04

Economic
News

Consumer Credit (Q2): Consensus $8.5B, Prior $11.0B

Pending Home Sales (Q2): Consensus -1.4%, Prior 5.3%

Wholesale Inventories (Jul): Consensus 0.7%, Prior 1.1%

Crude Inventories (09/06): Consensus NA, Prior -1898K

Export Prices ex-oil (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior 0.8%

Import Prices ex-oil (Aug): Consensus NA, Prior 0.9%

Initial Claims (09/06): Consensus 440K, Prior 444K

Trade Balance (Jul): Consensus -$58.0B, Prior -$56.8B

Treasury Budget (Aug): Consensus -$105.0B, Prior -$117.0B

Core PPI (Aug): Consensus 0.2%, Prior 0.7%

PPI (Aug): Consensus -0.5%, Prior -1.2%

Retail Sales (Aug): Consensus 0.3%, Prior -0.1%

Retail Sales ex-auto (Aug): Consensus -0.2%, Prior 0.4%

Business Inventories (Jul): Consensus 0.5%, Prior 0.7%

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Sep): Consensus 64.0, Prior 63.0

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