Today's atrocious housing data was already a given, and the markets keyed off of additional strength from Friday on the introduction of the Obama Financial team today. We are also coming off of severely oversold conditions and much of the rally seen was technical rather than fundamental.Here are today's unofficial closing levels:
DJIA: 8443.39 (4.93%)
NASDAQ: 1472.02 (6.33%)
S&P 500:851.81 (6.47)
Top Analyst Calls
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) was written up in Barron's after closing at $90,000 on Friday and seeing a low of $74,100 last week. The "financial bible" publication believes that the stock now finally looks cheap. Shares were up almost 4% at $93,300.00 right before the close.
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) was a huge gainer after the government bailout that Wall Street wanted finally came to save the stock. The US Government is injecting $20 billion in fresh capital and will absorb most of the potential losses on a $306 billion pool of high risk assets. The government will also receive preferred shares with an 8% yield and Citi's common stock dividend will go down to $0.01. Shares were up a whopping 60% at $6.04 right before the close.
Genentech (NYSE: DNA) may benefit from Roche reports overseas today. Reports from the company put Avastin as being a favorable drug to treat breast cancer after the drug met its primary endpoints. More formal data will be presented at a forward date. Shares were up over 5% at $76.71 right before the close.
LM Ericsson Telephone Co. (NASDAQ: ERIC) was given a fairly ugly downgrade this morning, although that call should be considered a very late and one that may just be a formality rather than revealing any new breaking data. Credit Suisse lowered the stock to an Underperform rating. Shares were up 14% at $6.66 in disregard of the downgrade right before the close.
Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFMI) was given a positive article in Barron's over the weekend. The premise is that the organic and high-end grocer is not broken and if normal times were in the market that shares "would be beyond the bottom." Shares were up a whopping 21% at $9.95 right before the close.
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