The Wall Street Report: Two-Day Slide Halted

Matt Egan
FOXBusiness

After a back-and-forth trading session, Wall Street's two-day selloff ended on Wednesday as big rallies for retailers and life insurers overshadowed the latest bleak economic news.

Today's Markets

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 47.55 points, or 0.61%, to 7837.11, the S&P 500 added 9.61 points, or 1.18%, to 825.16 and the Nasdaq Composite picked up 29.05 points, or 1.86%, to 1590.66. The consumer-friendly FOX 50 gained 4.12 points, or 0.67%, to 619.15.

Without any major economic reports and mixed signals on the earnings front, the markets searched for direction throughout the day before ending near their midpoint. Stocks were pushed higher by strong gains from retailers thanks to positive earnings from Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY: 31.7, 6.19, 24.26%) and a surge in the life-insurer sector amid talk of a government bailout.

“I think right now the earnings picture is going to dictate trading. It’s going to be choppy, as it has been,” said Dan Greenhaus, equity analyst at Miller Tabak. “Companies that perform like Bed, Bath & Beyond are going to be rewarded and those that don’t are going to be punished.”
The gains were Wall Street's first of the week and came despite Alcoa's (AA: 8.06, 0.24, 3.07%) weaker-than-expected quarterly results and the Federal Reserve downgrading its already gloomy economic forecast.

The Nasdaq Composite widely outpaced the broader market thanks to big gains from tech and consumer discretionary stocks. The vast majority of the Nasdaq 100's components closed in the green, led by Bed Bath & Beyond and Juniper Networks (JNPR: 17.51, 1.89, 12.1%).

Home Depot (HD: 25.11, 0.77, 3.16%), Alcoa and American Express (AXP: 15.73, 0.76, 5.08%) led the way up on Dow. On the downside, General Motors (GM: 1.929, -0.071, -3.55%), Citigroup (C: 2.68, -0.08, -2.9%) and Bank of America (BAC: 7.05, -0.28, -3.82%) tumbled. Last week the blue-chip index put the finishing touches on its strongest four-week win streak since 1933.

“We’re coming off a 26% rally [from the March lows] so one would believe there would be some give back. Nothing goes up forever,” said Greenhaus.

Wall Street's rally was nearly derailed after the Fed released its March 17-18 minutes, which showed the central bank is no longer banking on a 2009 recovery. Policy makers, which decided at last month's meeting to inject another $1 trillion into the economy, expect a slow recovery next year and unemployment to continue rising.

Retailers Dominate Earnings Kickoff

A day after earnings jitters sent the Dow to a 186-point plunge, Wall Street put a positive spin on mixed earnings reports as all five major companies reporting results ended higher.

Consumer discretionary stocks like Macy's (M: 10.33, 0.65, 6.71%) and Aeropostale (ARO: 26.92, 1.39, 5.44%) rallied around Bed Bath & Beyond, which beat the Street by 11 cents and said it’s comfortable with analyst expectations for the current quarter and full year. Similarly, discount retailer Family Dollar (FDO: 34.61, 1.88, 5.74%) soared to 52-week highs after it matched expectations and upped its full-year outlook again. Also, Ruby Tuesday (RT: 6.08, 2.24, 58.33%) surged more than 50% after the restaurant operator widely exceeded estimates.

The upbeat news from the retail sector overshadowed the results from aluminum maker Alcoa, which officially started earnings season late Tuesday by reporting a weaker-than-expected loss of 59 cents per share. Mosaic (MOS: 45.575, 2.615, 6.09%) also disappointed the Street as the fertilizer company’s net income plunged 88% last quarter.

Insurers, M&A Provide Strength

Life insurers were the biggest winners on Wednesday as stocks like MetLife (MET: 24.75, 0.67, 2.78%) and Genworth Financial (GNW: 2.34, 0.24, 11.43%) surged after The Wall Street Journal reported the Treasury Department plans to soon offer TARP funds to a number of struggling life insurers that own federally chartered banks. Sources confirmed to FOX Business the government is considering such a move.

Life insurers were the ... (Click here to read the rest of this story.)

The Wall Street Report: Unemployment Grows

Crunching the Numbers

Dow's four-week win streak continues as it surpassed the 8000-point mark for the first time since late November of 2008 !

The Dow [.IDU] rosed in good fashion at +39.51 points (+0.50%) to 8017.59; as the Nasdaq [.IXIC] had the BEST WEEK EVER, with +19.24 (+1.20%) at 1621.87 !!!


Stocks closed out a week that began with a wicked selloff and turned to a historic move higher on a fairly quiet note.

The major averages ended positive, following tumult that saw a major accounting change and the indexes posting gains not seen in more than 70 years.

Bank stocks pared their losses after spending the morning lower, a day after critical changes to accounting rules known as mark-to-market lifted the entire market. Internet companies helped lead a late-afternoon bounce that saw the Nasdaq tech barometer close with a more than 1 percent gain and the Standard & Poor's 500 break the 840 technical barrier.

Sobering news on employment and a lower reading in business activity had sent stocks negative earlier, but volume was anemic through the day and the averages moved little after noon. Data showed the economy shed 663,000 jobs in March and the unemployment rate climbed to 8.5 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has posted post its biggest four-week gain in 75 years as analysts are talking about an end to the bear market.

"Short- to intermediate-term I'd have to say I'm probably positive," said Matthew Tuttle, president of Tuttle Wealth Management in Stamford, Conn. "The numbers are ugly but everyone expected them to be ugly--they're not uglier than we thought they were going to be. At least in the short to intermediate term we probably have seen a low."

Some pullback from the week's high was expected Friday as profit-takers recovered some of the massive losses the market has seen in the past 18 months.

"I think the rally got a little ahead of itself here," Art Cashin, director of floor operations at UBS, told CNBC. "There are certain aspects about this that still say, 'bear market rally.' It was heavily led by the most-shorted stocks."

Technology showed the most strength as the broader market struggled.

Elsewhere in government, Congress has approved President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget that includes massive spending increases in health care, education and energy.

In other markets, copper futures rose above $2 a pound for the first time since November as fund managers began moving back into the metal. At the same time, Treasury prices continued to fall as risk appetite gained, sending the 10-year note a full point lower.

Market breadth was positive, with gainers beating losers 2 to 1 as 1.48 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange.

The Dow (.IDU) is up +3.10% for the week, and still down -8.65% for the year. The Nasdaq (.IXIC) is up +4.96% for the week, and also up +2.84% for the year. Which means, the markets were posted dramatically not seen in more than 70 years !



Peter Madoff Is In Court Today !!!
By AARON LUCCHETTI

MINEOLA, N.Y. – Peter Madoff under a new stipulation on an asset freeze can spend up to $10,000 per month for living expenses, including mortgage loans and insurance premiums.
The judge in the case Friday accepted the new stipulation, according to a court official.
Lawyers for Peter Madoff and a law student who wanted to extend a freeze on Mr. Madoff's assets had presented an agreement to Judge Stephen Bucaria in a suburban New York court Friday morning.

But the judge initially declined to accept it, saying it needed to be changed in both form and substance.

Judge Bucaria had said he was concerned about the extent of his jurisdiction, especially given that U.S. prosecutors were also handling many of the same issues in the federal investigation of the Madoff case, in which Peter Madoff's brother, Bernard Madoff, has pleaded guilty to perpetrating a massive Ponzi scheme.

"The agreement has serious omissions," the judge said earlier.

The hearing followed a decision by Judge Bucaria from a week ago to temporarily freeze the assets of Peter Madoff. The lawsuit was brought by a Brooklyn Law School student who claims he lost nearly $500,000 in the case. The issue at Friday's hearing was about imposing a more-permanent freeze as the law student pursues recovery.

The lawsuit alleges that Peter Madoff served as sole trustee between 2003 and 2008 for a trust established for Andrew Ross Samuels in 1997 by his grandfather, Martin J. Joel Jr., and breached his fiduciary duty to the trust.

Peter Madoff, as chief rules-compliance officer of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, "had full knowledge that it was a fraudulent Ponzi-scheme and nothing more than an unprecedented fraud," the lawsuit said. Peter Madoff hasn't been accused of wrongdoing in the alleged fraud.

A lawyer for him has said his client didn't know about the fraud.

Peter Madoff took the stand, and took an oath to accept the stipulation. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and brown striped tie.

For more on the Bernard Madoff "Scam of the Century", please visit the Special Section of The Wall Street Journal .

Job Losses Grow, But More See Signs The Worse Is Over


When it comes to job losses in this recession, March may end up being the cruelest month.
“It almost can’t get any worse,” says economist David Jones of DMJ Advisors.
Friday's jobs report showed that a wide range of employers eliminated a total of 663,000 jobs last month, pushing the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent, the highest since late 1983.

The Wall Street Report: Inside The G20 Summit

Stocks to Watch:

GOOG, RIMM, INTC, CSCO, GE

The Dow [.INDJ] rosed +216.48 (+2.79%) to 7978.08; and the Nasdaq [.IXIC] continued its climb to the top at +51.03 (+3.29%) at 1602.63 to almost erase all of its losses for the year !


G-20 Agrees to Regulatory Crackdown, Bolsters IMF Resources

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- World leaders agreed on a regulatory blueprint for reining in the excesses that fed the worst financial crisis in six decades and pledged more than $1 trillion in emergency aid to cushion the economic fallout.

The Group of 20 policy makers, meeting in London, called for stricter limits on hedge funds, executive pay, credit- rating companies and risk-taking by banks. They also boosted the resources of the International Monetary Fund and offered cash to revive trade to help governments weather the economic and social turmoil. They sidestepped the question of whether to deliver more fiscal stimulus in their own economies.

The G-20 commitments amount to a transatlantic compromise and an effort to rewrite the rules of capitalism to address an integrated world economy that has outgrown the ability of individual governments to keep it in check. The leaders met as mounting unemployment demands a response even as stocks rose amid signs the global economy may be stabilizing.

“Global problems require global solutions,” U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told reporters after hosting the talks. “Our prosperity is indivisible.”

• Dow industrials atop 8,000

Galvin Charges Madoff 'Feeder Firm' Fairfield Greenwich with Fraud

Massachusetts regulators today civilly charged Bernard Madoff “feeder firm” Fairfield Greenwich Group with fraud for assuring clients that it thoroughly monitored the now-disgraced financier’s work.

“Investment advisers have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients under law, (but) the allegations against Fairfield . . . outline a total disregard for such responsibility,” Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin said in filing a complaint on behalf of Massachusetts investors.

Galvin said Fairfield marketing materials claimed the firm closely tracked $7 billion of client money put into what turned out to be Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

Read more here .

The Fairfield Greenwich Group site: https://www.fggus.com/