Closing Bell: Market surges after yo-yo session; WM and AIG up, SRDX, CPST, STT all down

Posted Sep 18th 2008 4:20PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: After the Bell, Market Matters, Amer Intl Group (AIG), Washington Mutual (WM)

The markets could have changed their name to 'Yo-Yo' today rather than 'Skydiver.' It wasn't the VIX reaching multi-year highs of 40 that ran us up. It wasn't last night's intervention. It was the first overseas curbing of short selling financial stocks in the U.K. and then the word that the government was preparing a new version of the Resolution Trust Corporation.

Dow 11,010.74 +401.08 +3.78%
Nasdaq 2,199.10 +100.25 +4.78%
S&P 500 1,202.86 +46.47 +4.02%
10 Yr Bond(%) 3.432% +0.022%

52-week lows
Top Analyst Upgrades & Downgrades

Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) was a huge winner today. Shares were up over 50% at $3.17 right before the close after it has formally put itself up for sale. The rest of the rally came from government hopes of a new RTC.

American International Group (NYSE: AIG) also saw a monster run. Shares rose 20% to $2.45 on more than 200 million shares. Tie that one to a possible RTC as well.

SurModics Inc. (NYSE: SRDX) was down 22% at $30.48 right before the close of trading today. It lost Merck as its development partner in part of a strategic review, which will likely kill off a larger portion of future revenue hopes.

Capstone Turbine Corp. (NASDAQ: CPST) did some real damage. Shares were down 24% at $1.33 today after the company raised about $30 million in new capital via unit sales of stock and warrants. The problem is that management previously said this would be its last choice of how to raise capital.

State Street Corp. (NYSE: STT) was a big loser today. There are concerns about the viablility of its conduits, but it looks like the real fears may have been around it not being able to loan as much stock for short sales. Shares were down 15% at $54.99 right at the close but they had dipped down to about $30.00 intraday at the worst point before traders figured out they weren't dying.

Tags: AIG, CPST, Resolution Trust Corporation, ResolutionTrustCorporation, SRDX, STT, WM

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

9-18-2008 @ 5:47PM

GFlynn said...

The market rise was nothing but institutional money buying big blocks of the lending companies at basement prices. The buying happened all day and then went nuts after the Feds announced it was back in business backing losing businesses. Ironic huh? The average investor had nothing to do with the sudden rise. The damn floor traders can't move their fingers that quick. It was big blocks and big money.