Markets

(8:05am ET) Stocks closed Monday's session in NY lower on a lightly-traded day, but much higher Week over Week. Through Friday, the major market indexes saw their largest four-week gains in seventy-six years. Now the market is preparing for 1Q2009 earnings season, which gets underway today with Alcoa (AA). On Monday, the DJIA (-41.74 -0.52% to 7975.85), S&P (-7.02 -0.83% to 835.48), and NASDAQ (-15.16 -0.93% to 1606.71) could not make headway against concerns the major banks may be preparing to release negative quarterly reports. The Toronto Composite (-49.59 -0.55% to 9016.17), and Venture Board (-12.42 -1.27% to 963.17) were also down on the day, but higher Week over Week. In international equity markets today, the closing prices showed losses except for Shanghai China (+0.80% to 2439.2): Australia -1.30% to 3648.5; Hong Kong -0.46% to 14929.0; India -1.80% to 10534.9; and Japan -0.28% to 8832.9. At 7:30am ET, [More...]