Stocks rally today! In the largest 3-day gain since November today’s 240 point jump brings the 3-day total to a positive 622 points.
This week’s rally got an extra dose of adrenaline after an accounting board told Congress Thursday it may recommend a let-up in accounting rules for troubled banks in three weeks. Banks have been dogging the market since 2007, so hope that financial institutions might finally get relief in how they value their bad assets spurred a flurry of buying on Wall Street.
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Better-than-expected retail sales figures also helped stocks, as did positive news from four Dow companies: Bank of America Corp., General Electric Co., General Motors Corp., and Pfizer Inc.
Could this be the first step to recovery, or just ‘day-to-day gyrations’?
No one is calling the end to the selling on Wall Street. The economic picture is too uncertain, and much of this week’s rally has been driven by technical factors. One of those factors is traders’ inclination to buy stock to cover “short” bets, or bets that a stock will fall.
But it’s been the most reassuring week in months for the stock market.
Pres. Obama hosted a business roundtable today and defended the administration’s current policy of spend, spend, spend.
The current turmoil can’t be used “as an excuse to keep ignoring the long-term threats to our prosperity” from the rising costs of health care and energy and a faltering education system, Obama said to the group, which is made up of CEOs from U.S. companies including Citigroup Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and General Motors Corp.
Obama is campaigning to maintain public support for his economic strategy, which includes new government spending as part of a $787 billion stimulus plan and stabilizing the banking industry and housing, as well as tackling the health-care system, energy and education. He also is defending his plans against critics among congressional Republicans and some Democrats.
A new age of diplomacy with Iran could be on the horizion,
The Obama administration is considering lifting a ban on regular diplomatic contacts with Iran and looking at ways to develop a direct line of communication to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said officials briefed on the deliberations.
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The Obama administration’s first direct contact with Iranian officials is expected to come later this month at a U.N.-sanctioned conference on Afghanistan in the Netherlands. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials say Washington and Tehran could collaborate in countering the Afghan narcotics trade and weakening the Taliban.
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The U.S. has tightly controlled all diplomatic contacts with Tehran since the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution. American officials are largely banned from talking to Iranian officials at conferences, cocktail parties and the like, unless they get a specific waiver.
Madoff goes to prison, finally! After being allowed to live in his $7 million townhome durring the arrainment, he pled guilty to charges filed against him today.
Careful to blame only himself, a “deeply sorry and ashamed” Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Thursday to pulling off what could be the biggest, most spectacular swindle Wall Street has even seen, and was sent off to jail in handcuffs to the applause of his furious victims.
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The 70-year-old financier could get up to 150 years in prison at sentencing June 16 on 11 counts, including securities fraud and perjury.
The FBI arrests 2 in D.C. today. One of the men was a government worker in the offices of the city’s chief technology officer, details are somewhat sketchy.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because charges had not yet been unsealed, said worker Yusuf Acar was arrested Thursday. Another man, Sushil Bansal, was also arrested.
Space junk was a potential problem for the international space station, causing the 3 current residents to spend some time in the emergency escape capsule.
A tiny piece of space junk smaller than a fingertip forced three astronauts to briefly evacuate the International Space Station on Thursday when the debris came too close for comfort.
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Space junk is considered a threat to the estimated 800 or so commercial and military satellites operating in space and the space station, which has been continuously manned since November 2000. There are more than 18,000 pieces of space debris cataloged.
The particular peice that caused the concern today was too small to be monitored.
Finally, Wishful thinking…???…is mind-reading really a potential sceintific possibility?
Enjoy!
-TF-
