Closing Bell: Late day rally on financials over oil

Posted Jul 8th 2008 4:12PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Federal Natl Mtge (FNM), Office Depot (ODP), EMC Corp (EMC)

Oil was down another $5.00 per barrel today, yet that failed to cause a major rally despite a $9.00 in just two days. Today's end of day rally was led by financials after an FDIC conference which led to excitement about the sector. If you were looking for any brightness in home sales, May's pending home sales came in at -4.7% year over year. We also saw wholesale inventories in May rise by +0.8%. Perhaps more interesting is that the MAY Consumer Credit rose more than expected to $7.8 Billion. Below are the unofficial closing bell levels for today:
DJIA 11,384.21 (+152.25)
S&P500 1,273.68 (+21.37)
NASDAQ 2,294.42 (+51.10)
10YR T-Note 3.88% (-0.05%)
52-WEEK LOWS
TOP 10 ANALYST CALLS

Hank Paulson's speech gave some support after his speech didn't ring of the "Death of GSE's" and shares of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) were up over 10% at $17.40 in today's final minutes.

Altair Nanotechnologies (NASDAQ: ALTI) saw its shares rise over 33% to $1.94 by today's final minutes after the company successfully completed its demonstration and validation program for a two-megawatt 500 KW-hour battery system purchased by AES Corp.

Office Depot, Inc. (NYSE: ODP) was so bad after its earnings warning that it could be found in the toilet under "Office de Pot." Shares were down 33% at $6.93 in late-day trading.

VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) was another disaster after its CEO was listed as "gone, effective immediately" and after its guidance was taken as a warning. VMware shares were down 26% at $39.34 in today's final minutes. EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) fell in sympathy as it owns the majority of VMware, and its shares were down 10% at $13.62 in late-day trading.

Tags: altair nanotechnologies, AltairNanotechnologies, emc corp, EmcCorp, office depot, OfficeDepot, vmware