Closing bell: Market surges late in day; LEH, MER down, WM, RIMM up

Posted Sep 11th 2008 5:30PM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: After the Bell, Yahoo! (YHOO), Market Matters, Merrill Lynch (MER), Research in Motion (RIMM), Washington Mutual (WM), QUALCOMM Inc (QCOM), Lehman Br Holdings (LEH)

The market made a sharp turn without explanation. After being off most of the day on concerns about the futures of Lehman (NYSE: LEH) and Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM), stocks rallied at the close.

The improvement did little to help Lehman, WaMu, and Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER), which were swamped by panic over their abilities to stay independent. WaMu moved up at the end of the day, but it was without explanation.

The big rally came in tech. Shares in Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), and Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM) all ended up over 5%. While there was little evidence that the environment for the sector is improving, they are in one of the few relatively safe sectors of the market.

Here are the unofficial closing bell levels:

DJIA: 11,433.71 (+1.46%)

S&P 500 1,249.05 (+1.38%)

Nasdaq: 2,258.22 (+1.32%)

10 Year Bond 3.6220 (-.0190)

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Tags: LEH, MER, QCOM, RIMM, WM, YHOO