Today was almost as fitting as you could get for a Friday ahead of a 3-day weekend. It felt quiet and directionless, despite a huge late-day recovery just the day before. It was as if the markets had no serious direction ahead of a long weekend even though the stimulus package essentially looks like a done deal and even with banks halting all foreclosure activities for a brief period of time. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:
Dow 7,849.13 -83.63 (-1.05%)
S&P 500 826.70 -8.49 (-1.02%)
Nasdaq 1,534.36 -7.35 (-0.48%)
10YR T-NOTE 2.88% (+0.12%)
Top Analyst Upgrades
Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) posted solid earnings, as long as you don't consider the 25% drop in existing store sales. The hip apparel retailer posted earnings of $1.10 EPS vs. $1.00 estimates. Shares were up 11% at $23.03 right before the close.
Continental Airlines (NYSE: CAL) was lucky as far as a stock is concerned, and very unlucky on a PR front. The crash with nearly 50 fatalities late last night in upstate New York was a Continental Connections flight, although Continental was not actually the operator. The stock was down almost 1% at $13.08 right before the close of trading.
Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) is expected to rise higher as Credit Suisse raised its rating to Outperform and downgraded rival Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) to an underperform rating. Palm shares were down by 0.5% at $8.92 and RIM shares were down 3% at $48.77 right before the close.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) is taking a risky strategy with a retail store opening approach, similar to what a man named Steve Jobs did. This is a Hail Mary pass which could go either way. Shares were up 0.05% at $19.27 right before the close.
Pepsico Inc. (NYSE: PEP) met earnings estimates at $0.88 EPS and signaled earnings growth in the mid to high single digits for 2009. Shares were up almost 2% at $52.84 right before the close.
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