There was a bit of a move up in the market today, but there was very little news to push sentiment one way or the other. Traders are too tired from the beating they have taken since Memorial Day.

DJIA : 11,504.87 +0.81%
NASDAQ: 2,382.46 +0.87%
S&P 500: 12.81.63 +0.8%
10 Year Bond 3.772% -0.0120
52-Week Lows

Short interest figures for stocks traded on both the NYSE and Nasdaq were released yesterday: Short sellers jumped out of both financials and big tech, signaling a possible turn up in those sectors.

Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) and Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) continued to rally, extending hopes they will not have to be bailed out by the government and that common shareholder will not be crushed. Late in the day Freddie was up 17% and Fannie 12%.

Today's headlines could have read, "Rally on Financial Write-Downs, Go Figure!" Last night we saw a $3 billion preferred offering out of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: LEH) that became a $4 billion offering. Shares were down on the news but after the dust settled the market decided this was a net-net good and shares rose almost 18% to $44.34. Even UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) rallied a sharp 14% to $33.01after it said it was going to take a $19 Billion additional writedown charge and its chairman left the company. Go figure.

The Institute for Supply Management said its index of national manufacturing activity rose to a reading of 48.6 in March, which is still a contraction but not as bad as estimates of about 47.5 from economists. There may be hope that the de-leveraging being seen by financial firms and tightened trading standards may be taking some steam out of the greatly inflated commodities. Crude oil fell $0.74 to $100.84/barrel, but briefly each barrel traded back under the $100 mark. Even gold dropped back below $900.00/ounce level after having seen north of $1,000.00 just last month. Below are the unofficial closing averages for US market index readings:

• DJIA 12,654.36 (+391.47; +3.19%)
• S&P 500 1,370.16 (+47.46; +3.59%)
• NASDAQ 2,362.75 (+83.65; +3.67%)
• 10YR-TBond 3.545% (+0.113)
• 52-week lows, there are always some

Thornberg (NYSE: TMA) is up over 30% on news that it has raised $1.3 billon.

Cell Genesis (NASDAQ: CEGE) is up 38% on a development partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical.

Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) is up almost 6% on news that it has raised $3 billion.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) is down 1.3% on news that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) will not raise its offer for the company.

Stocks may trade differently in the pre-market than they do in the regular session.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.