Stocks Reach Higher, Home Sales Surprise, Obama Backs Lending

Stocks closed higher today on a plethora of good news. The bulls were fueled by a surprising jump of 7.4 % in existing home sales. This was the largest increase in almost 3 year. Further news of the Obama administrating seeking to increase business lending added to the optimistic session. The VIX index dropping below 20 for the first time in over a year gave additional signals that fear has left the market. The DJIA advanced +50.79 to 10464.93, the tech heavy Nasdaq pushed higher by +15.01 to 2252.67 and the broad based S&P 500 climbed +3.97 to 1118.02.

American International Group
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: Shares climbed 10.66% or $2.99 to $31.05 on word of the company stopping plans to IPO, its property casualty unit.

Clarient
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: Gained 4.44% or 11 cents to $2.59/share after it was announced they acquired privately held Applied Genomics.

EnerNOC
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: A Bank of America upgrade to “buy” sent shares higher by 14.29% or $3.99 to $31.91 for the electricity demand reduction service.

Progress Software
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: Advanced 7.69% or $1.99 to $27.88 after beating analysts earnings estimates.

Gold fell another 9.30 to $1087.00, oil added 35 cents to $74.07 and the VIX fear index collapsed 4.64% to 19.54.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

+50.79 10464.93

NASDAQ

+15.01 2252.67

S&P 500

+3.97 1118.02

Economic
News

GDP – Third Estimate (Q3): Consensus: 2.8%, Prior: 2.8%

GDP Prices – Third Estimates (Q3): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.5%

Existing Home Sales (Nov): Consensus: 6.25M, Prior: 6.10M

Personal Income (Nov): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: 0.2%

Personal Spending (Nov): Consensus: 0.7%, Prior: 0.7%

PCE Prices (Nov): Consensus: 1.6%, Prior: 0.2%

PCE Prices – Core (Nov): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

Mich Sentiment-Rev (Dec): Consensus: 73.7, Prior: 73.4

New Home Sales (Nov): Consensus: 439K, Prior: 430K

Crude Inventories (12/18): Consensus: NA, Prior: -3.69M

Initial Claims (12/19): Consensus: 470K, Prior: 480K

Continuing Claims (12/12): Consensus: 5175K, Prior: 5186K

Durable Goods Orders (Nov): Consensus: 0.5%, Prior: -0.6%

Durable Goods Orders ex Auto (Nov): Consensus: 1.0%, Prior: -1.3%