Markets Trim Losses Over Obama's Comments

The markets recovered from early morning losses to trade mixed during the midday after President Obama commented that the fallen stock prices are now good deals for investors. The Dow slipped 12 points to 6752 while Nasdaq added 2 points to 1325.

On the upside

ABM Industries (NYSE: ABM) reported first quarter earnings that more than doubled prompting the company to lift its outlook for the first half of fiscal 2009.

Although fourth quarter earnings dropped for Bruker (Nasdaq: BRKR), the results beat expectations.

PDL BioPharma (Nasdaq: PDLI) swung to a fourth quarter profit as revenue surged and declared two semiannual dividends.

On the downside

Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings both downgraded American Capital's (Nasdaq: ACAS) credit ratings after the company widened fourth quarter losses.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cited the continuing drop in Gannett's (NYSE: GCI)advertising revenue for downgrading the newspaper publisher's corporate credit rating.

Delta Petroleum (Nasdaq: DPTR) blamed a significant impairment charge for widening fourth quarter losses.

In the broad market, declining issues outpaced advancers by a margin of more than 2 to 1 on the NYSE and by more than 7 to 5 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks fell 5 points to 363.