Treasury's Reassurances Lift Markets

Despite early morning losses, the markets close higher after the Treasury Department reassured investors that it will act to shore up the ailing auto industry. The Dow climbed 65 points to 8630 while Nasdaq surged 33 points to 1541.

On the upside

Speculation that Palm (Nasdaq: PALM) may unveil a new operating system at Consumer Electronics Show in January lifted shares of the company.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Akorn's (Nasdaq: AKRX) generic drug to treat infections from corneal ulcers and conjunctivitis.

The Department of Justice said that 61 branches of National City (NYSE: NCC) must be sold before PNC Financial Services (NYSE: PNC) will be allowed to acquire National City.


On the downside

Shares of scientific instrument maker PerkinElmer (NYSE: PKI) fell after rival Waters (NYSE: WAT) slashed its fourth quarter outlook.

Deutsche Securities downgraded auto parts supplier American Axle (NYSE: AXL) after the auto industry bailout package failed.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani cut his fiscal 2009 outlook for Flextronics International (Nasdaq: FLEX) and lowered his price target due to a slump in demand.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of 3 to 2 on the NYSE and by more than 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks surged 17 points to 468.
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