Since it had become a matter of market confidence, or really a lack thereof, confidence was bolstered today with the Fed’s announcement it would pump $180 billion into the world’s banking system and the implementation of the naked short ban. I read the news of the naked short selling ban wrong; I thought the ban went into place yesterday. So when yesterday’s market was a total sinker, I figured it was too late for the ban to do anything and that my experiment would soon go bust. I was very wrong. The ban actually went into effect TODAY, not yesterday, and it had a definite effect:
Centerline Holding (CHC): Up 3% to $1.72
Syncora Holdings (SCA): Up 13% to $2.25
Thornburg Mortgage (TMA): Up 13% to 34 cents
Merrill Lynch (MER): Up 14% to $22.06
Ambac (ABK): Up 15% to $6.67
Citigroup (C): Up 18% to $16.65
MBIA (MBI): Up 19% to $11.64
PMI Group (PMI): Up 22% to $2.57
National City(NCC): Up 24% to $4.40
Regions Financial (RF): Up 34% to $14.60
Radian Group (RDN): Up 35% to $5.00
Washington Mutual (WM): Up 48% to $2.99
First Marblehead (FMD): Up 67% to $4.75
MGIC Investment (MTG): Up 74% to $9.50
To be fair, most of the gains made today were only enough to erase just Wednesday’s huge losses, and the last week and a half of loss before today’s rally is still “on the books”. And, there will likely be a fair amount of profit-taking tomorrow. But who am I to complain? I made [up] $2,600 today, and most of that came in just the last hour of trading.
Even American International Group (AIG) had a double digit percentage gain today: up 31% to close at $2.69. The Dow closed up 410 points to $11,019. Oil gained 72 cents to close at $97.88. Today was Wall Street’s best day in six years.
