Tech Leads Advance, Mall Bankruptcy, AIG Dumps Unit

  • April 16, 2009
  • Dave Goodboy

Stocks closed solidly higher today on positive word from the economic front and expectations of strong earnings in the technology and banking sectors. Shares shrugged off negative news of a large shopping mall operator seeking bankruptcy protection reaching higher near the close. AIG dumped its U.S. auto insurance unit at tangible book value creating the 3rd largest U.S. auto insurer surpassing marketing kingpin GEICO. The DJIA advanced +95.81 to 8125.43, the Nasdaq surged +43.64 to 1670.44 and the S&P 500 jumped ahead by +13.24 to 865.30.

Rosetta Stone
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Plexus Corp
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Emergent BioSolutions
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Harley Davidson
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Gold fell hard $13.70 to $879.80, Oil climbed 0.73 cents to $50.00 and the fear index VIX continues its downward trend losing 1.05% to 35.79.

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Market Snapshot

Dow

 +95.81 8125.43

NASDAQ

 +43.64 1670.44

S&P 500

 +13.24 865.30

Economic
News

Core PPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

PPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.0%, Prior: 0.1%

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

Retail Sales ex-auto (Mar): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.7%

Business Inventories (Feb): Consensus: -1.1%, Prior: -1.1%

Core CPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.1%, Prior: 0.2%

CPI (Mar): Consensus: 0.2%, Prior: 0.4%

Empire Manufacturing (Apr): Consensus: -35.0, Prior: -38.2

Net Long-Term TIC Flows (Feb): Consensus: NA, Prior: -$43.0B

Capacity Utilization (Mar): Consensus: 69.7%, Prior: 70.9%

Industrial Production (Mar): Consensus: -0.9%, Prior: -1.4%

Crude Inventories (04/10): Consensus: NA, Prior: +1645K

Fed’s Beige Book: Consensus: NA, Prior: NA

Building Permits (Mar): Consensus: 550K, Prior: 547K

Housing Starts (Mar): Consensus: 550K, Prior: 583K

Initial Claims (04/11): Consensus: NA, Prior: 654K

Philadelphia Fed (Apr): Consensus: -32.0, Prior: -35.0

Mich Sentiment-Prel (Apr): Consensus: 58.5, Prior: 57.3