- Call Me Crazy: Confessions of a Black Friday Shopper
- US Firms Hit by Payroll Taxes at Exactly the Wrong Time
- Citi Mortgage Reveals Something the US Treasury Won't
- Fed Sanguine About US Recovery, Worried on Jobs
- Amended Berkshire Filing Reveals No 'Secret' Holdings
- In Time for Holidays: More Gloom and Doom on Economy
- Market Pros Reveal Top Black Friday Trades
- Holiday Guide to This Season's Smartphones
- Turkey Day 101: How Well Do You Know Your Bird?
- Citi Mortgage Reveals What Treasury Won't
- S&P to Hit 1,200 by Year-End: Chief Investor
- Amended Berkshire Hathaway Filing Indicates No Secret Stock Stakes at End of Q3
- Facebook's Biggest-Ever Holiday Shopping Season
- Facebook's New Dual Class Structure - Slow Steps to an IPO
- 5 Big Bank Stocks Investors Should Consider: Strategists
- Gambling Drunk, Texting to Live And America's On Sale - Your Emails
- Nov. 24: Unusual Volume Leaders
- NBA D-League On The Rise
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Amended Berkshire Hathaway Filing Indicates No Secret Stock Stakes at End of Q3
- CNBC Anchor Takes a Sabbatical
- Privately Held Facebook Creates Dual-Class Stock
- NBA D-League On The Rise
- On Twitter, Beware False Prophets
- Boeing, Duke Energy Win Smart Grid Stimulus Grants
- Is Genius Contagious?
- Citi Mortgage Reveals What Treasury Won't
- Nov. 24: Unusual Volume Leaders
Text Size 
Writer
Stocks rallied Wednesday and the Dow broke through 10,000 for the first time in over a year, fueled by strong earnings from JPMorgan and Intel.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 144.80, or 1.5 percent, to close at 10,015.86, the first time it's closed above 10,000 since last October.
Cheers erupted on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as the Dow crossed 10,000 around midday. As quickly as it crossed the 10,000 mark, it retreated — as if just stepping a pinky toe across the line. Another attempt in the final hour of trading helped push the Dow above 10,000 — and keep it there through the close.
Some market pros said the Dow's break above that level today will likely trigger a wave of sell orders but other said it could be full steam ahead.
"Dow 10,000 may be largely psychological, but with tremendous levels of cash on the sidelines this may still be a call to action for investors," Lawrence Glazer, managing partner at Mayflower Advisors, told Reuters.
 |
More importantly, traders said — hedge your bets.
The drivers behind today's rally were JPMorgan and Intel, which delivered better-than-expected quarterly reports.
The third-quarter earnings season had gotten off to a great start last week, with Alcoa delivering analysts exactly what they wanted to see — an improvement in revenue.
The season took a turn earlier this week after Johnson & Johnson delivered more of the same — an improvement on the bottom line due to cost-cutting measures, but no signs of sustained growth. Intel and JPMorgan got this season back on the tracks.
Banks led the charge today after JPMorgan [JPM
Loading...
()
] crushed earnings expectations, delivering 82 cents a share — analysts had expected 52 cents a share.
Financials were the best performer of 10 key S&P sectors, up 3.3 percent.
Bank of America [BAC
Loading...
()
] was the biggest percentage gainer on the Dow, ahead of its earnings, due out on Friday. Citigroup [C
Loading...
()
] and Goldman Sachs [GS
Loading...
()
] report Thursday.
 |
Source: cnbc.com |
The JPMorgan beat came on the heels of Intel's [INTC
Loading...
()
] better-than-expected results after the bell yesterday. The chip maker also delivered a more bullish forecast than expected.
Railroad operator CSX [CSX
Loading...
()
] also beat consensus on its latest earnings report.
"Third-quarter results are, on the whole better-than-expected in general, and it's taken some people by surprise," Anthony Conroy, head trader for BNY ConvergEX, told Reuters. "Now, you're starting to see not only decent earnings but a little bit of growth."
After financials, the best-performing sectors were industrials and materials, up 2.6 percent and 1.9 percent, respectively.
Crude oil [US@CL.1
Loading...
()
] settled above $75 a barrel for the first time in over a year as commodities continue to benefit from US dollar weakness.
The dollar tumbled to its lowest level in more than a year against the euro, hurt by persistent expectations for low U.S. interest rates as well as investor appetite for commodity currencies.
The economic news was also fairly positive: Retail sales fell 1.5 percent in September, the Commerce Department reported, but beat economists' expectations of a 2.1-percent drop. Auto sales trailed off a bit, now that the Clunkers program is over. Excluding the volatile auto component, sales rose for a second straight month.
This government report came after big chain stores last week beat September sales forecasts, helped by a helped by a late Labor Day and delayed back-to-school shopping. Plus, a cool September helped several retailers that are more impacted by weather.
Meanwhile, import prices rose 0.1 percent in Septemer as the price of imported petroleum fell. Economists had expected a 0.2-percent increase. And business inventories shrunk by 1.5 percent in August, the 13th consecutive monthly decline—and largest since last December.
Federal Reserve officials were apparently conflicted about whether to expand or cut back a program aimed at driving down mortgage rates during their meeting last month. Minutes of the meeting, released today, showed some members thought an increase in the program was necessary, while at least one thought signs of a recovery warranted a reduction.
Due to the Columbus Day holiday, the Energy Information Administration's measure of crude oil inventories will be out at 10:30 am New York time on Thursday.
Ford [F
Loading...
()
] shares climbed 0.5 percent after the auto maker reported record third-quarter vehicle sales in China.
After the bell today, we'll get a report from chipmaker Xilinx [XLNX
Loading...
()
].
Shares of American Airlines parent AMR [AMR
Loading...
()
] jumped after Barclays upgraded its rating on the stock to "equal weight" from "underweight."
In the news, Bloomberg LP has agreed to buy BusinessWeek from McGraw-Hill [MHP
Loading...
()
] for an undisclosed amount.
Volume was slightly below average, with 1.35 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange. Advancers outpaced decliners, roughly 3 to 1.
— Reuters contributed to this article.
Still to Come:THURSDAY: IRS amnesty for offshore accounts ends; CPI; Empire State manufacturing; weekly jobless claims; Philly Fed; weekly crude inventories; Earnings from Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, IBM and AMD
FRIDAY: Industrial production; consumer sentiment; Fed's Fisher speaks; Earnings from Bank of America, GE, Halliburton and Mattel
Send comments to .
- Remember when auto shows were major events where new models could generate buzz?
- CNBC’s Mike Huckman visits a cutting-edge plant to see how the flu vaccine of the future is being made.
- People who bottle up their anger at work are up to five times more likely to suffer a heart attack, a study found.
- Playboy will outsource its publishing operations in a bid to become profitable again.
- A new McDonald's in Manhattan is the nation's first to sport a sleek, chic interior imported from stores in London and Paris.
- For nearly three decades, these on-call experts have been dishing advice on how to – and not to – cook turkey.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes