Closing Bell: A wild trading day

Posted Jul 15th 2008 4:12PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: General Motors (GM), Sprint Nextel Corp (S), Federal Natl Mtge (FNM), Genentech Inc (DNA)

Today was nothing short of a wild trading day and despite the levels seen at the close it is still a toss up over whether the bulls or bears won today. Merrill Lynch has said that the commodities cycle may have peaked in the first half of this year. It noted that the S&P/GSCI commodity index was up roughly 41% during the first half of 2008, which is the largest gain since the index inception. This may have only been one factor, but oil fell as much as $9.00 per barrel in the biggest one-day dollar drop since 1991. We did even briefly see the VIX hit that magic 30.0 reading. Below are the unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA 10,961.72 (-93.47)
S&P500 1214.96 (-13.34)
NASDAQ 2215.71 (+2.84)
10YR T-Note 3.844% (-0.036%)
52-WEEK LOWS
TOP ANALYST UPGRADES
TOP ANALYST DOWNGRADES

Genentech, Inc. (NYSE: DNA) rose today despite a weak earnings report and despite it saying it was going to act like an old industrial company with a share buyback plan. Shares were up over 5% at $79.37 in todays final minutes.

General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) was up 5% at $9.87 at the end of the day despite being weak on the open. We saw yet another restructuring of its financial situation so the company would have a better operating structure from a liquidity standpoint.

Are you getting sick of reading about Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM)? We are just about to send a letter to foreclose on Fannie Mae just so we won't have to analyze it or report on it any more. Shares were down 24% at $7.38 on more than 180 million share in today's final half hour of trading. The SEC is instigating rules that would make naked short selling illegal, although that is already supposed to be the case.

Trina Solar Limited (NYSE: TSL) shares were down more than 2% at $29.69 in today's final minutes after it filed an open shelf registration to sell securities this morning.

Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) saw a rather large surge in volume after CNBC's David Faber reported that SK Telecom is in talks to potentially acquire the ailing telecom.

Tags: commodities, gsci, sec, trina solar, TrinaSolar