If you were hoping that last week's stealth rally was going to continue, that didn't happen. Manufacturing data was atrocious here in the U.S., and even China gave horrible data on that front. Then, the NBER came out and officially declared the recession has been afoot -- in case you hadn't noticed. To show how much demand destruction there is, oil was down another $4.00 by 2:00 PM. All this data led to record lows on Treasury maturity yields.Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) was hit on a research report predicting that tomorrow's GE Capital presentation will be a platform that will allow the company to reduce guidance further than it already has.
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) traded up early on reports that a new deal between Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo! may occur on a search pact rather than a merger. This was refuted elsewhere and it took the wind out of the rumor.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) was noted favorably as proceeding into retail banking operations via acquisitions or partnerships soon and after layoffs in the U.K. Interestingly enough, this was one of the more battered financial stocks out there.
Premiere Global Services, Inc. (NYSE: PGI) really bucked the trend today. Oppenheimer raised the stock rating to an Outperform based on excessive selling that had gone to an extreme for a company with single-digit P/E ratio that is still growing.
Mentor Corp. (NYSE: MNT) was also one of the few standouts today with huge gains, but that was on a nearly 100% premium buyout.