US Stock Market Recap: Big 3 Beg, HP Surprises

After another day of volatile trading on Wall Street, all three major indices are push to positive levels. Markets were down a significant amount early in the day, especially the Dow which had lost about 130 points. The Dow did recover to gain 151 points and close out the day at 8424.75 points. While the S&P and Nasdaq gained 8.36 and 1.22 respectively. The S&P finished at 859.11 points and the Nasdaq finished at 1483.27 points. The Russell 2000 didn’t fare as well as its larger counterparts, by falling 18.95 points and closing at 432.35 points. In international trading the Nikkei fell 2.28%, and Britain’s FTSE 100 went up by 1.47 percent.

On Capitol Hill, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairmen Ben Bernanke defended the $700 Billion bailout plan that they crafted to avert financial destruction and chaos. Henry Paulson was quoted saying that the US has “turned a corner” in staving off a crisis, but that there is much more work still left.

Detroit’s automakers spent another day making their case for some sort of government aid amid the slow meltdown of their industry. Daimler (DAI) CEO Robert Nardelli warned the Senate Banking Committee today that his company may not be able to continue operations unless given financial support. He also said that the current economic conditions are to blame for their low amounts of cash and not underachieving management of the automakers.

In other corporate news Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) threw a curve ball by saying that 4^th quarter results should be better than what analysts have been predicting. This comes as a surprise, from a company in a sector which has been hit hard by the current slowdown. In a statement, HP attributes their confidence on “global reach, diverse customer base, broad portfolio and numerous cost initiatives.”

Jerry Yang of Yahoo (YHOO) will step down from his post as the company’s CEO. This news comes after a rough year for Yang, who denied an offer from Microsoft (MSFT) earlier in the year because he felt the takeover price didn’t do Yahoo’s true value any justice.

Oil prices moved down today to $54.58 on the day. Gasoline futures fell to $1.14. Natural gas also finished lower at $6.52. Gold was down to $737.3, capping off a bearish session for commodities despite a mildly bullish finish for the indices.

Disclosure: The fund the author is associated with holds a long position with MSFT.

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