Closing bell: Stocks surge before close; YHOO, MSFT, MER, UBS all up, C down

Posted Oct 16th 2008 4:15PM by Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: After the Bell, Earnings Reports, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), Market Matters, Citigroup Inc. (C), Merrill Lynch (MER)

Many market observers would say that the indexes swung widely today. All that should matter is that they ended up. Oil dropped below $70 which was heartening to anyone who wanted to know if inflation is dead. Here are the unofficial closing numbers:

DJIA: 8.973.28 (up 4.61%)

NASDAQ: 1,717.71 (up 5.49%)

S&P 500 845.81 (up 4.18%)

Citigroup (NYSE: C) has another embarrassing quarter. The big bank had yet another write-down of bad paper on its balance sheet, this time for $4.4 billion. That caused a loss of $2.8 billion compared to a profit of $2.2 billion last year.The news kept the stock in the red most of the day.

Another American financial icon, Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER), lost a ton of money. The broker had a deficit of $5.2 billion. The firm said the September was especially bad for business that may make investors think that the fourth quarter is not likely to be strong.

In Europe, another massive bank has bad new. UBS (NYSE: UBS) had to take $5.7 billion from the Swiss government for a 9% interest. It also turned over almost $60 billion in bad paper for the central bank to hold. No one knows the value of those assets. The Swiss taxpayers may be getting a big bill.

A comment by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer that doing a deal with Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) might make economic sense sent the portal company up over 12%.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) puts out earnings tonight, which should set the tone for tomorrow.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Tags: C, featured, GOOG, MER, MSFT, UBS, YHOO

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-16-2008 @ 4:46PM

George said...

ANOTHER 8 YEARS TO THE BOTTOM?....TAKE A LOOK AT A DOW CHART, INFLATION ADJUSTED(=constant value dollars), SINCE ITS INCEPTION.... YOU WILL SEE A 30 YEAR CYCLE(except for 1929-32 when it fell about 90% in 3 years). I THINK WE ARE ABOUT 7 YEARS INTO A 30 YEAR CYCLE, WITH A BEAR MARKET FOR ANOTHER 8 YEARS. IF THAT CYCLE IS REPEATED(remember lessons of history?)................YOU CAN FIND THESE INFLATION ADJUSTED CHARTS BY ENTERING 'DOW INDEX INFLATION ADJUSTED', ON GOOGLE...........ALSO NOTE THAT THE Y AXES SHOWN ARE LOGARITHMIC, AND IF YOU CHOOSE TOO LARGE A ONE THEN ALL YOU WILL GET IS THAT THE MARKET IS TRENDING UP(which it is, but with 30 year cycles!). THE WIKIPEDIA CHART HAS THIS DEFECT. 'Fred's intelligent bear site' shows the 30year cycles well.