Trader Talk
- HMOs Up Despite Looming House Vote
- What The Street Thinks of The Jobless Report
- Friday It's All About Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
- October Retail Sales—The Good, Bad and Ugly?
- When Good News = Good News
- Retail And Jobs Lift Mood
- October Retail Sales—Early Buzz is Strong
- Traders Digest Election Results
- Whitney's Vision For The New Normal
- Railroads And Buffett
TRADER TALK RSS FEED
- Tommy Lee, Medical Tourism and Nasty Santa, Your Emails
- U.S. Markets Gain 3% for the Week Despite 10.2% Unemployment
- Disney's 'Carol' Tests Widest 3-D Release Ever
- Stimulus II? Jobs Tax Credit=Cash For Clunkers
- Rockwell Automation Earnings: What Options Are Saying
- Gold Will Touch Higher Lows and Higher Highs: Analyst
- Is Misery Alive And Well in Your Office?
- Consumers Haven't Changed, They Are Just Pickier
- Watch Foreclosures, Seriously
- For the Jobless, 10% is Harder Than Before
- Week Ahead: Stocks Search for Catalyst in Quiet Week
- Outlook: Dollar Likely to Ride Higher on Bleak Jobs Report
- Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Says Net Income Tripled
- Cramer: Earnings, IPOs Dominate Next Week
- Buying Fear: How to Own Volatility
- Administration Rejects Plan to Buy Fannie Mae Credits
- Consumers Haven't Changed —They Just Got Pickier
- Want the Homebuyer's Tax Credit? Here Are Some Tips
Text Size 
Reporter
Stocks briefly lost a little bit of steam as Fitch downgraded the state of California's long-term general obligation bond rating to "A-" from "A" and placed the bonds on Rating Watch negative "based on the magnitude of the state's financial and institutional challenges and persistent economic and revenue weakening."
Earlier, a broad advance midday, with strength in retail, healthcare, industrials, and energy, with gains due to:
1) Bernanke aggressively defending his record and even going on the offensive at some point, insisting that his actions prevented the global economy from going into an even steeper decline;
2) a strong 7-year Treasury auction, joining the strong 2- and 5-year auctions this week;
3) consolidation in the retail space with the Tween Brands [TWB
Loading...
()
] - Dress Barn [DBRN
Loading...
()
] deal, and talk of more cost-saving deals to come;
3) Hertz comments about car rentals stabilizing. Hertz [HTZ
Loading...
()
] up 13 percent, Thrifty [DTG
Loading...
()
] up 23 percent, Avis [CAR
Loading...
()
] up 17 percent. Hertz says U.S. and European demand is stabilizing and the outlook for summer reservations has improved. Full year guidance is well ahead of Street estimates, and seems to be based on an actual improvement in demand, not just cost savings or higher prices.
In an interview on CNBC, Hertz CEO Mark Frissora said he was "scrambling to buy as many cars" as he could to anticipate increased demand.
Perhaps just as important was the fact that Hertz gave guidance at all; they had stopped providing guidance when things started going south some time ago.
Hertz is one of the first companies to resume guidance; is this the start of a trend? Right now, judging by what is happening at airlines and other transportation companies, they seem to be a bit of an outlier. For example, we have heard nothing about improvement in demand from the hotel industry.
_____________________________
Questions? Comments?
- HMOs Up Despite Looming House Vote
- What The Street Thinks of The Jobless Report
- Friday It's All About Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
- October Retail Sales—The Good, Bad and Ugly?
- When Good News = Good News
- Retail And Jobs Lift Mood
- October Retail Sales—Early Buzz is Strong
- Traders Digest Election Results
- Whitney's Vision For The New Normal
- Railroads And Buffett
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes