Friday’s Market Recap: Stocks Up, Google, Twitter, Bank Of America, US Airways

The markets inched higher today as the S&P (^GSPC) was up 0.94%.  The Dow (^DJI) and NASDAQ (^IXIC) were both up, closing at 8017.59 and 1621.87 respectively.  Both gold and oil had bad days, gold settled at $897.30 while oil settled at $52.51.  The price of the 10 year treasury fell over a dollar, and closed at a yield of 2.9%.

In tech news today, it was reported that Google (GOOG) is interested in partnering or acquiring Twitter.  Twitter  is a social media website that allows users to post messages from mobile devices about what they are currently doing.  Google has a lot of cash and the purchase of Twitter would be similar to it acquiring YouTube back in 2006.  Google views Twitter as a great growth company, whose business strategy similarly matches its own and would be a great addition to the company.  Twitter is experiencing rapid growth with an average of 6 million new tweets (posts), a day and is expanding it user base to more people.  The co-founders of Twitter, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, have already sold a company to Google, when in 2003 they sold blogger service, Pyra Labs.  Google would have to pay a hefty premium if it were to acquire the company, but feels that it might be worth it looking down the road.

Financials were up today led by Bank of America (BAC) as it was announced that the Board of Directors authorized the payment of $713 million in dividends to the government.  BofA wants to pay the $45 billion in TARP funds back to the U.S. Treasury as soon as possible.  J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) and Goldman Sachs (GS) have both commented on the fact that they would like to pay back the TARP money that they received back, saying as soon as within a year.  More and more banks are either not accepting TARP money or looking to repay it quickly.  This is due to the fact that banks are concerned about regulators requiring them to pay the money back too fast or having questions raised about them delaying payments back to the government.

In more positive news, US Airways (LCC) was up almost 5% after a positive first-quarter update.  An analyst from Avondale Partners LLC, said that he was expecting a loss of $2.44, ending up surprised with the airline’s results.  He cited the fact that declining fuel prices and capacity cuts make up for revenue weakness.  This positive news comes the same day as it was announced that there was a -8.9% decline in mainline passenger traffic for US Air.  Many believe though, that things have bottomed out for the airline industry, and believe that numbers will improve as the peak travel season begins to start.

Disclosure: The mutual fund the author manages is long JPM, GS, and GOOG.

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