I don’t want to make too much of this, but it was a pretty good day for stocks, considering all the negative stuff the markets had to deal with. Consider:
1) Oil updespite dollar strength.
2) Hewlett was a drag on the Dow, on debate it may have overpaid for EDS .
3) Wal-Martgave conservative guidance.
4) Oppenheimer lowered earnings on brokers.
5) Fed officials were saying that a quick rebound was unlikely; bonds moved down.
Despite all this, we were basically flat.
And: the largest insurer in the world raised a heck of a lot of money. AIG priced 171 m shares at $38—that’s $6.5 b , and they raised another 5.4 b of equity units (they’re registered trusts in which investors purchase units from a fixed amount of AIG equities). AIG up 1.8 percent, off its 52-week low yesterday.
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