Closing Bell: late-day greed trumped fear (CIT, RIMM, HGSI, MSFT, ETFC)

Posted Nov 2nd 2009 4:00PM by Jon Ogg

Today was a whip-around day. All day. Despite better construction and better manufacturing employment data, the markets looked like they were trying to roll over again before the end of day rally took stocks back up on the day. It seems that bargain hunters won over the fear that was felt earlier this afternoon.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 9,789.21 +76.48 (0.79%)
S&P 500 1,042.82 +6.63 (0.64%)
Nasdaq 2,049.20 +4.09 (0.20%)

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CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) was clobbered today after it filed its pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy package. CIT shares were down a sharp 63% at $0.26 on very heavy trading volume as investors were getting out before their stock hit ZERO.

Research in Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) was weak all day due to a downgrade to "Sell" at Citigroup. We had shares down 5.8% at $55.30 on double average volume in the stock and in very active options trading.

Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: HGSI) was the huge winner of the trading day with shares at multi-year highs on its positive lupus study data at the higher dose. Right before the close the stock was up 29.8% at $24.27 on almost 6-times normal trading volume.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) managed to hang in there despite Steve Ballmer having very cautious comments about growth versus a return of spending. Shares were up 0.55% at $27.88 ahead of the closing bell.

E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) was down almost 5% at $1.39 ahead of the closing bell. This is despite the company withdrawing its TARP application due to recent funding events.

Tags: CIT, ETFC, HGSI, lupus, MSFT, RIMM, steve ballmer, SteveBallmer