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Closing bell: Even after Visa, the bear roars (XOM, MOS, ABX, FNM, FRE, COMS, MER, ERIC, NOK)

Posted Mar 19th 2008 4:46PM by Jon OggJon Ogg RSS Feed
Filed under: After the bell, Exxon Mobil (XOM), Nokia Corp. (NOK), Merrill Lynch (MER), Federal Natl Mtge (FNM), Barrick Gold (ABX)

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If you thought holding a rally after a huge day was too much, you weren't too far off the mark. Many people ask over and over if this is a real bear market or not. By a classic definition that may still be up in the air, but this is what every bear market feels like. It also goes to show that you almost want to sell every time you feel good about things and then buy when you feel like everything couldn't get any worse. Hearing traders and market technicians say, "Sell the rallies" is becoming quite commonplace. Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was the largest US IPO ever with its shares soaring after their unprecedented debut yesterday at $44 per share. Investors see promise in electronic payments as shares rose 33% on its IPO debut. Here's the drop for the major averages:
  • DJIA 12,099.66 (-293.00; -2.36%)
  • S&P 500 1,298.42 (-32.32; -2.43%)
  • NASDAQ 2,209.96 (-58.30; -2.57%)
  • 10YR-TBond 3.362% (-0.089)
There were many names on the 52-week lows, but many formerly hot names you wouldn't have guessed. If you look at the major collapse that was seen in the commodity stocks (and commodity prices) that have been major leaders, you'd think they were almost exposed to CDO's too. Oil fell $6.02 to $102.48 per barrel, and that took down Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) by more than 4% to $84.43; Gold fell down over $59.00 to $944.70 per ounce late in the day and that took Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX) down 8.7% to $45.25. The Mosaic Co. (NYSE: MOS) was also a huge loser as traders took off more of their agriculture trades with a drop of 11% to $97.25


3Com Corporation (NASDAQ: COMS) dropped over 20% on news that agreement with Bain has not yet been reached and may break-up. New low of $2.08 from $2.69.

Merrill Lynch and Co. (NYSE: MER) dropped over 8% today to $42.69 as credit default swap spreads widened and as traders talked about higher and higher writedowns coming soon. Today, they filed a lawsuit against XL Capital Assurance to meet its credit default swap obligations.

Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) was up almost 9% to $30.90 and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) was up almost 13% to $29.36 in response to moves by the government to stabilize the credit markets and economy. Regulations for reserve requirements were eased to free up $200 billion to add liquidity.

LM Ericsson Telephone Co. (NASDAQ: ERIC) posted profit decreases and projects lower cell-phone demand this year. Shares are down by 10% to $17.44. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) fell in response by 10%.

Tags: ABX, ERIC, Ericsson, Fannie mae, FannieMae, FRE, Freddie Mac, inthenews, MER, MOS, NOK, V, Visa, XOM

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Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA+23.3610,457.07
NASDAQ+7.202,176.38
S&P 500+3.981,109.63

Last updated: November 25, 2009: 02:44 PM

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