(9:48am ET) Equity market prices lifted pretty much from start to finish of Thursday’s session. Retail Sales, Jobless Claims and Business Inventories and comments from Barney Frank and Tim Geithner played a role in the general bullishness. The latter made comments on the dangers of ending the mark-to-market rule and instead believe subtle changes could be made in an effort to improve it. Pfizer (PFE) made a big splash with the announcement its Phase III trial of Sutent was stopped early as the drug showed a significant benefit in patients with pancreatic cancer. At the close, the DJIA (+239.66 +3.46% to 7170.06), S&P 500 (+29.38% to 750.74) and NASDAQ (+54.46 +3.97% to 1426.10) were up sharply for the second day in the past three. The Toronto Composite (+271.25 +3.39% to 8282.27) and Venture Board (+19.52 +2.37% to 843.42) were almost as strong. The winning sector by a wide margin was [More...]