Re-cap of the US Stock Market Action for the session ending 14 December 2009

US Stocks closed on 14 month highs Monday, as Citi announced plans to repay US$20B in TARP funds, on the back of B of A full repayment of UD$45B, Exxon Mobil announced the buy out of XTO Energy for US$30B + debt and Abu Dhabi coming to the table for its Gulf neighbor Dubai to the tune of US$14B +.

The DJIA added 29.55 pts, or 0.28%, to close at 10,501.05, the S&P 500 rose 7.70 pts, or 0.70%, to close at 1,114.11, and the NAS tallied up + 21.79 pts, or 0.99%, to end the session at 2,212.10.

Sun Microsystems Inc (covered in Stock Talk today) shares jumped 11% to $9.28 on NAS after European Union regulators signaled they could clear Oracle Corp’s US$7B takeover. Oracle’s stock rose 2.3% to $23.31.

Visa Inc (covered in Stock Talk today) shares rose 4.2% to $84.77 on the NYSE after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s said late Friday that it will join the S&P 500 after the close of trading on December 18th.

Advancing Sectors: Materials (+1.5%), Industrials (+1.2%), Consumer Discretionary (+0.9%), Health Care (+0.9%), Tech (+0.9%), Financials (+0.6%), Utilities (+0.4%), Consumer Staples (+0.3%), Energy (+0.2%)

Declining Sectors: Telecom (-0.1%)

Volume and Breadth: trade was light on the NYSE, with 1.07B/shrs changing hands, below last year’s estimated daily average of 1.49B/shrs, and on the NAS, about 1.85B/shrs traded, below last year’s daily average of 2.28B/shrs. Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by about 3 to 1, and on the NAS, about 2 stocks rose for every 1 that fell.

Stocks to Watch Today

Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS), Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation (RL), Sun Microsystems, Inc. (JAVA), Visa, Inc. (V).

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Posted by Shayne Heffernan on Dec 15th, 2009and filed underEquities, Latest News, Limelight, Markets.You can follow any responses to this entry through theRSS 2.0You can leave a response by filling following comment form or trackback to this entry from your site