Dow gains, above 8000 again

Stocks closed the week with an excellent day, way up. Dow rose 246, taking it over 8K (again) closing at the high, advancers were ahead of decliners 6-1 & NAZ rose 61. The highlight story today was Wells Fargo (WFC), gaining 32%.

S&P 500 FINANCIALS INDEX rose 19 to 143.29 taking it above the interim high in late Jan. The Wells Fargo euphoria gave the index one of its best days in history. Its next objective is to reach 169 where it closed last year.

Stocks also had a great day. The Alerian MLP Index rose 2½ to 198½, the DJ REIT Index jumped 14 to 122 & junk bond funds had a good day. Fears eased as the VIX dropped almost 2 to the 37s, near the low for the year. Even oil had a nice day, up 2½.

The Treasury 10 year bond yield rose 8 basis points to 2.93% today. For 3 months it's been in the 2½-3% range which compares with a 2% low at the start of 2009 vs near 4% for much of last year.


Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) was up 4% after losing its coveted AAA credit rating. Helping today's gain was its 7% stake in Wells Fargo.

Berkshire gains on Wells stake despite Moody's cut- Reuters

General Motors (GM) is offering its bondholders a stock swap for its debt. Last month they offered bondholders around 24¢ on the dollar between cash & new debt. Now it's believed to be 10-20% of the "new" company. Details are fluid at this stage. To continue getting gov help, they have to shed $28B in debt by next month. Stay tuned as the drama plays out.

GM preparing new offer to bondholders: report- Reuters


Markets surged with a big gain going into a long weekend. Dow returned to the sensitive 8K line. Banks may have good looking reports when they start coming next week. However after borrowing costs fall to zero, it's easy to make money. But they will still have a lot of bad loans to deal with not to mention more gov meddling.