Stock Market News for March 10, 2010 - Market News
Stocks seesawed between gains and losses on the one-year anniversary of March 2009 lows, but managed to end the day slightly higher on strength in financial and telecommunication shares.
Although March 2009 was exceptional when socks hit their nadir and there was panic all over, markets have since rebounded well and the rally has been equally exceptional. Barring Dubai World and Greece that exposed the cracks in the economic recovery, the prospects for a global economic rebound have been strong.
Although the rally was modest yesterday, the DJIA and S&P500 managed to reach their 6-week highs. The tech-heavy NASDAQ continued to outperform and jumped to fresh 18-month highs, as volume picked up from recent low trading levels. The DJIA closed up nearly twelve points, or 0.1%, at 10,564; the S&P500 edged up 0.2% at 1,140; and the NASDAQ, helped by Cisco's (NASDAQ:CSCO) announcement of a new routing system, closed up 0.4% to about 2,341. However, shares in Cisco slipped after the company unveiled a router than it said can handle 12 times the Internet traffic of the fastest router currently on the market.
Commodities declined, sending basic material shares lower. However, strength in telecom shares and industrials offset the weakness in basic material stocks. Of the ten S&P500 sectors, telecom shares were the leading gainers (+1.2%), followed by industrials (+0.7%), technology (+0.4%), financials (+0.3%), oil and gas (+0.1%), consumer goods (+0.1%), health care (-0.1%), consumer services (-0.1%), utilities (-0.2%), and basic materials (-0.4%).
Those leading the list of gainers on the DJIA included United Technologies (NYSE:UTX), which rose 1.4% after analysts at Cowen & Co upgraded the stock to "outperform," General Electric (NYSE:GE) rose 1.4% after saying it expects earnings to rise in 2011 after a flat 2010, and AT&T (NYSE:T), which advanced 1.1% after testing the new Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) router and noting the new device moves data at ten times that of typical broadband connections. Hopes that the new router will cut congestion on mobile networks sent shares in Sprint (NYSE:S) up 6.5%, and Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP), 3.9%.
AIG (NYSE:AIG) was the best-performing S&P500 stock, up 12.6%, on speculation it would sell more assets to repay the US government. Citigroup (NYSE:C) shares jumped 7.3% after a Fox Business report said the US government is planning to sell its 27% stake in the company. Shares in Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) rose 5.9%, and Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) advanced 7.6%. Reports say, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), has returned its TARP bailout money.
Additional items of interest include another Obama arm-twisting, health-care speech, weekly mortgage apps, state employment rates, a Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) hearing, and a Treasury auction of 10-years.
The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.
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