Day Traders Diary

11/25/08

U.S. stocks open higher once again, extending the market's biggest two-day jump in two decades. Today's rally is getting help from the Federal Reserve initiating two new programs to help resurrect dormant consumer loans and hopefully revive the economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 106 points to 8,550. The S&P 500 climbed 13 points to 865, while the Nasdaq Composite added 3 points to 1,475. The financials are up once again including Citigroup. Goldman Sachs is higher following a strong bond sale. Morgan Stanley is higher following an upgrade. Bank of Montreal is up 7% on strong sales. The Canadian banks are being run much better than our own banks. Homebuilders Lennar and D.R. Horton are strong after lousy earnings. The retail stocks are trying to rally even though business is bad. American Eagle, Talbots, and Chicos had dismal earnings yet all three are modestly higher. Abercrombie & Fitch is up 10% on an upgrade. The commodity stocks are not participating in the rally and many techs are lower. Apple, Research in Motion, Cisco, HP, and Microsoft are all lower. Google did not participate in the rally yesterday, but is the stock is up 8% today on news of some cost cuts. After the first hour, the Dow remained up 100 points. The Nasdaq dropped into the red by 10 points. Through the morning the averages gave up their gains. The Nasdaq dropped further while the Dow fell into the red. Citigroup and JP Morgan are still in the green while the rest of the financials are trying to hold in there. The averages were not far from the unchanged level entering the lunch hour. In the afternoon we accelerated to the downside. Even Citigroup fell into the red. In the last hour Moodys upgraded Morgan Stanley's debt to stable from negative causing the stock and the financials to rebound. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 36 points to end at 8,479. The S&P 500 climbed 5 points to 857, while the Nasdaq Composite declined 7 points to 1,464.

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