Equities rose on the day, with all three major market averages solidly in the green. The Dow closed up 100 points, helped by the end of a strike at General Motors (NYSE:
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News). The Nasdaq, meanwhile, finished up 16 points, while the S&P tacked on 8 points. Oil initially fell after weekly inventories levels unexpectedly rose, but rallied to close up 77 cents to $80.30 a barrel. The price of gold slipped on the day.
In economic news, the Commerce Department reported that demand for durable goods nose-dived in August, with weakness across most categories. Orders fell -4.9% for the month, worse than the -3.5% drop economists were expecting. It was the biggest decline since January, and comes on the heels of a large 6.1% gain in July. Crude oil inventories, meanwhile, unexpectedly rose last week by 1.8 million barrels to 320.6 million barrels. Analysts were expecting inventories to drop by -2 billion barrels.
Topping the headlines today, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors agreed to a tentative contract early this morning, ending a 2-day strike. As part of the contract, the two sides confirmed that GM would fund a newly created trust that the UAW will run to administer retiree healthcare benefits. For its part, GM will continue to offer some job guarantees. The UAW hopes to strike similar deals with Ford (NYSE:
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News) and Chrysler. Shares of GM spiked 9.4%.
Shares of defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin (NYSE:
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News), General Dynamics (NYSE:
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News), and Raytheon (NYSE:
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News), hit or flirted with all-times Wednesday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was meeting with Congress today to request an additional $45 billion to cover military costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. If approved, Gates' request will raise initial 2008 budget-year war projections by nearly a third to $190 billion.
Shares of Vonage (NYSE:
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News) fell below a $1 after a jury found that it infringed on six patents held by Sprint Nextel (NYSE:
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News). The VoIP company was ordered to pay Sprint $69.5 million in damages. Vonage said it will seek to try to have the Sprint judgment overturned. Earlier this year, Vonage lost a patent infringement case to Verizon (NYSE:
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News) for $58 million plus royalties. Today, a court upheld two of the three patent infringement charges in a separate verdict.
In M&A news, Nasdaq (Nasdaq:
NDAQ -
News) and Borse Dubai raised their bid for Swedish exchange OMX to $4.9 billion, a 15% increase over their previous offer. The exchanges also made agreements with several large shareholders that combined control nearly 19% of OMX to now secure half of OMX's shares. The moves were made in response to The Qatar Investment Authority increasing its stake in OMX, which could indicate it may try to block the deal. Elsewhere, Bear Stearns (NYSE:
BSC -
News) shares rose 7.7% on rumors that the investment bank is close to selling a minority stake in itself. Among the potential suitors named include a Chinese bank, HSBC Holdings, and Warren Buffett, among others.
By the BullMarket.com Staff
Labels: BSC, F, GD, GM, LM, NDAQ, RTN, S, VG, VZ