Stocks rallied today because oil dipped about $2. I’m not too surprised, though, that oil took a breather given last week’s huge rally.
The NASDAQ was the relative winner on the day (seems like this has been the case for the last few weeks) thanks to strength in Apple and Research in Motion. Apple announced that its online store is out of iPhones and this was taken as a very bullish sign by investors. RIMM unveiled its new BlackBerry called the BlackBerry Bold. It will have faster Web browsing and more video and music storage. The competition between RIMM and Apple will be interesting to follow this summer; Apple is expected to release its new 3G iPhone in June.
MBIA dragged the markets down in the morning, but the stock was able to recover by mid-afternoon. MBIA reported a Q1 loss of $2.4B or $3.01 per share. Analysts were looking for a loss of $1.21 per share. What caused the stock to recover? The CEO said “we have ample liquidity, our balance sheet is built to withstand credit stress levels many multiples of what we’re experiencing now.” Basically, MBIA does not need to raise more capital and that made investors happy.
JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon said “the capital markets crisis sparked by last year’s collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market is about 75 percent over” (Source: Bloomberg.com).
Wal-Mart had its price target raised to $67 from $57 by Citigroup. Apple also had its price target lifted at BMO Capital and Amtech (Source: Briefing.com).
DJIA 12,876.31 +130.43 (+1.02%)
Nasdaq 2,488.49 +42.97 (+1.76%)
S&P 500 1,403.58 +15.30 (+1.10%)
NYSE Volume 3,352,633,000
2-Yr Bond 2.30% +0.05
10-Yr Bond 3.78% +0.01
30-Yr Bond 4.53% unch
Crude Oil (June) 124.23 -1.73
Nat Gas (June) 11.301 -0.236
Gold (June) 884.90 -0.90
No comments:
Post a Comment