U.S. stocks rose, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average above 9,000 for the first time since January, as EBay Inc., Ford Motor Co. and AT&T Inc. posted better-than-estimated results and home resales increased more than forecast.
EBay rallied 11 percent as its earnings signaled consumers’ appetite for online commerce is starting to recover. Ford jumped 9.4 percent after topping analyst estimates by paring expenses and adding market share. AT&T added 2.6 percent as new customers of Apple Inc.’s iPhone bolstered profit. D.R. Horton Inc. led all 13 stocks in an index of homebuilders higher as sales of existing homes increased for a third straight month.
The S&P500 Index advanced 2.3 percent to 976.29 at 4:06 p.m. in New York, the highest level since President Barack Obama was elected on Nov. 4. The Dow gained 188.03 points, or 2.1 percent, to 9,069.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index surged 2.5 percent to 1,973.6 for a 12th straight gain, its longest streak since 1992 and highest level since October.
(Bloomberg.com)
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6 Responses
so Obama can say he got the stocks back to what they were when there was a Republican in the White House. I’m betting he can’t keep it there.
charliehall: First let’s see unemployment go down – then you can use all the sarcasm you can muster. For now, I am going to say this is an abberation.
Unemployment is still rising, and housing prices are still falling, and the states are being forced to cut back on services and employment.
Corporations that can work around the various stimulus packages should do well, but that’s not a basis for a recovery.
Of course, if you consider how Americans were living beyond their means during the Clinton and Bush administration, there might never be a return to that level of what appeared at the time to be prosperity (allbeit based on borrowed money that could never have been repaid easily).
The press of course is not telling us the real reason the market went up – it appears Obama healthcare plan will not pass as proposed.
The market feels that Congress is starting to push back against Obama and that his honeymoon is over.
The rise in the market is in proportion to Obamas reduction in the approval polls.
#5 – could be. It could also be typical wall street illogical euphoria:
earnings reports came in this week and while companies are still hemmorhaging and losing boatloads of cash – they lost less than expected.
So wall street which is looking for something, anything to be positive about got it’s with these reports of not-as-bad-as-expected losses.
BTW, the Japanese and European (and Israeli) markets have been up for a coupla weeks now, they started rising before wall street and wall street might just have gotten a boose from the genral uptick in worldwide stocks.
also, do not forget that the DOw was up in may only to fall again in June. let’s wait until the July unempolyment #’s are released and see what happens to the dow then.