Massively explains Warhammer Online to the dedicated WoW player

AOL Money & Finance

Closing Bell: Stock traders finally love the oil ticker

Today was really about watching the oil ticker and seeing crude break down under the $124.00 mark. OPEC's president said in the right circumstances that oil could go back under $80.00. Median home prices fell almost 16% in May. The US's failed trade talks with China at the W.T.O. hardly mattered. It even looked like people on Wall Street were in a good mood today as the dollar hit a monthly high. After a near $3.00 drop to under $122.00 you have to wonder.... Can gasoline hit $3 again this year?

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA 11,395.12 (+264.04)
S&P500 1262. 94 (+28.57)
NASDAQ 2319.62 (+55.40)
10-YR T-NOTE 4.044% (+0.026%)
52-WEEK LOWS
Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) saw another gain of 2% to $31.45 in the final minutes after yesterday's earnings gains. But the key to today's move besides the market was massive stock options trading.

Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) was a mixed "love and hate" today, although by the end of the day shares were up over 5% at $25.677 in the final minutes. The company raised an effective $8.5 billion for an implied 20% dilution to get many CDO's off the books. Meredith Whitney of Oppenheimer calls this good news despite a cautious rating, while many now question John Thayne's credibility over the dilution he said wouldn't occur.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) saw gains today after the company disclosed that it sold its 2-millionth unit of the $99.00 Palm Centro smartphone. Shares were up 10% at $6.32 in today's final minutes.

Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) took yet another drumming today. The firm completed the XM merger but disclosed a huge share sale and its huge 7% debt offering has an effective conversion price of $1.875. Shares were down another 15% at $1.58 in today's final minutes. Cramer said it was about as safe as investing in a lotto ticket.

Sony Corp. ADR (NYSE: SNE) had a bad day as earnings fell 47% on flat sales, with electronics sales down 50% on price cuts and competition. The Sony-Ericsson phone venture barely made money at all, but the one bright spot here is that its video game unit is back to making money. Shares were down 6% at $37.49 (new 52-week low into close) in the final minutes.

Related Posts

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice

Last updated: October 11, 2008: 01:42 AM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

BloggingStocks Featured Video

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

AOL Business News

Latest from BloggingBuyouts

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.