Closing Bell: Bulls take reins back from Bears (AAPL, GRMN, HURN, HD, LOW, TGT)

Posted Aug 18th 2009 4:10PM by Jon Ogg
Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), Home Depot (HD), Target Corp. (TGT), Lowe's Cos (LOW), Garmin Ltd (GRMN)

Another day, another dollar. The difference is that yesterday's loss became today's gain. There was a weak wholesale inflation reading that kept the inflation hawks at bay and less-bad, or better than, expected earnings did the rest.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,214.54 +79.20 (0.87%)
S&P 500 989.53 +9.80 (1.00%)
Nasdaq 1,955.92 +25.08 (1.30%)

Top 10 Analyst Calls

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) rose on two issues... a key analyst upgrade with a $250 price target and it saw elevated call options trading today. Shares were up almost 3% at $164.09 right before the close.

Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN) rose on continued hopes that it would make the acquisition of smaller GPS rival Raymarine in the U.K. Shares were up almost 4% at $29.02 ahead of the close.

Huron Consulting Group Inc. (NASDAQ: HURN) was up big on a partial redemption of its accounting woes. Yesterday's earnings and projections were better than the drastically cut estimates after recent accounting woes.

The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD) managed to do better than rival Lowe's Companies (NYSE: LOW). The earnings were down 7% on lower sales but the home improvement retailer's beat expectations and which looked much "less-bad" than Lowe's did in yesterday's trading. Home Depot shares were up almost 3% at $26.84 ahead of the closing bell.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) rose sharply after earnings, and it did it without having to address an activist shareholder. Its profit fell 6% but came in well above analyst expectations. Shares were up 7.5% at $44.30 ahead of the close.

Tags: apple, featured, gps, HURN, huron consulting group, HuronConsultingGroup, inflation, raymarine, wholesale inflation, WholesaleInflation