Bulls back in US Market
US Market kicked off the second quarter on a very happy note as a few good news in the domestic front helped indices post huge gains at the end today, Tuesday, 01 April, 2008. Financial stocks once again helped US Market end higher today. All ten sectors ended in the green today. Elsewhere, traders parted off with commodities today as dollar rebounded. Hence gold and oil prices fell.
For the day, The Dow Jones industrial Average ended with a huge gain of 391 points at 12,654. The Nasdaq Composite Index, finished higher by 83.6 points at 2,362. S&P 500 finished higher by 47.5 points at 1,370.
All thirty Dow stocks ended in the green today. Citigroup along with other financial Dow components led the team of Dow winners. Citigroup shares soared by more than 11% today.
Market opened today in a positive mood and posted great gains throughout the day. There was mixed news in the financial front. UBS announced it expects to write-down an additional $19 billion in assets, its largest write-down to date. This brings the firms total write-downs to $33 billion since October. Deutsche Bank announced a write-down of $3.9 billion.
But Lehman Brothers said that it is raising $4 billion in a preferred stock offering to shore up its capital position. This news gave the financial sector a good boost today.
Among major economic report of the day, the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Manufacturing Index, a national manufacturing survey, unexpectedly rose 0.3 to 48.6. Market expected a reading of 47.5. A number below 50 in the ISM Index is meant to signal contraction; nonetheless, the market ran with the news as a hopeful sign that conditions in the manufacturing sector are stabilizing.
Crude prices fell modestly lower today as dollar rebounded against its rivals. Prices also softened on signs that tomorrows weekly inventory report will show inventories rose for the 11th time in 12 weeks as demand weakened.
Crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for May delivery closed at $100.98/barrel (lower by $0.60/barrel or 0.6%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices earlier fell to $99.55 during intraday trading. Crude prices are 55% higher on a yearly basis. For the year, crude is up by 5.2% till date. It touched a high of $111.8 on 17 March, 2008 but has slipped thereafter.
In the currency market today, the dollar extended gains gaining more than 2% against the yen as stocks soared after the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing index unexpectedly inched higher. This calmed the recession fears to a little.
Volume on the New York Stock Exchange topped 4.7 billion shares, with six stocks gaining for every issue on the decline. On the Nasdaq, 2.1 billion shares were exchanged, and advancers topped decliners 3 to 1.
Earning reports will kick off from tomorrow. Best Buy is one of the major names on that front. Among economic data, February's Factory Orders are due which gauges how busy factories will be as they work to fulfill orders. Other than that, Fed Chairman Bernanke will testify before the Senate Banking Committee on financial market turmoil in the midmorning hours.
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