Huge gains at Wall Street
Stocks at Wall Street witnessed huge gains on Wednesday, 21 January, 2009. It was the first full day for new President, Barack Obama at Oval office. The financial sector coupled with IBM helped market register a strong rally quite after some time. Oil prices also ended substantially higher.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended higher by 279 points at 8,228, the Nasdaq closed higher by 66 points at 1,507 and the S&P 500 closed higher by 35 points at 840.
Stocks rallied right out of the gate on Wednesday morning but pared some of their gains by noon hours. Nevertheless, indices picked up momentum once again in the late hours.
All ten sectors ended in the green today led by the financial sector. JP Morgan, IBM and Bank of America were the main Dow winners. BofA shares surged by 31% today on some reports of insider share purchase.
IBM supported all the three indices today after the company reported above-expected earnings for its fourth quarter and FY 2008 after yesterday's market close. The company also issued upside guidance for 2009. The stock traded higher by 12% today.
The former President, George Bush, entrusted a huge deal of responsibility on Obama who is working hard to get going with a stimulus plan of $850 billion to boost the US economy and take it out from the current recession.
In the financial sector, Northern Trust reported fourth quarter earnings beating estimate. Its shares responded by advancing 31%.
But all was not so good in the financial sector today. U.S. Bancorp failed to join in the financial sector's gains. USB reported worse-than-expected quarterly earnings results. U.S. Bancorp also indicated during its conference call that credit costs trended higher during the quarter.
On Wednesday, crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for March delivery closed at $43.55/barrel (higher by $2.71 or 6.6%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Last week, crude prices shed 10.6%.
At the currency market on Wednesday, the dollar index remained relatively unchanged after gaining almost 2% yesterday.
Other than earning reports, economic reports for tomorrow include December building permits, December housing starts, and initial jobless claims for the week ending 17 January, 2009, all due ahead of the opening bell as well. Other than that the weekly energy inventory report is due at 10 am E.T.
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