Deals back in news in US Market

Dow ends day with triple digit gain with twenty-eight components supporting it

Mergers and buyout news took the centre stage today, Wednesday, 22 August, 2007 pushing the recent credit crunch related news to the backside. Market also heaved a sigh of relief thinking that the situation in credit market is not so bad when they heard that top for banks have borrowed money from Fed’s discount window after the rate cut. All three indices closed in the green.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher by 145.27 points at 13,236.13. Tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 31.5 points to close at 2,552.8. S&P 500 gained 16.95 points to close at 1,464.07.

Twenty-eight out of thirty Dow stocks closed in the green today. Alcoa, Caterpillar, Boeing and Du Pont were the main Dow winners today. JP Morgan and CoCo Cola were the only two Dow laggards.

Reports that Rio Tinto has raised a record-breaking $40 bln to fund its proposed takeover of Alcan and Dubai World reportedly investing $5 bln to buy a 9.5% stake in MGM Mirage were the main deal news that boosted investor confidence that all is not so bad in the US market.

All Indian ADRs end in green

Indices rallied in the green for the entire day today. Among other deal news, TD Ameritrade and E*Trade Financial reported that they might merge. Nymex Holdings confirmed it is in takeover talks. Nymex shares rose more than 6%.

Four big banks - Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia and Bank of America said today that they had borrowed $500 million each from the Federal Reserve's discount window. The discount window is how Wall Street describes the process of borrowing money from the Fed at its discount rate.

Among the Indian ADRs, all Indian ADRs ended in green today. Satyam, Rediff, Infy, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were the top winners today. Satyam and Rediff, both gained almost 4.5% today. The other three rose up by 2.5% -3.5%.

Crude stays below $70 as inventories rise

Crude oil futures fell to lowest level in two months an eight-week low after Energy Department’s weekly report showed an unexpected increase in inventories. Prices were also lower because Hurricane Dean weakened and is expected to dissipate by tomorrow morning.

Crude-oil futures for light sweet crude for October delivery closed at $69.32/barrel (lower by $0.16/barrel or 0.23%) on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On a yearly basis, prices are 4.6% lower. Futures fell as low as $68.63 during intraday trading.

Volume at the New York Stock Exchange neared 1.5 billion shares, with advancers beating decliners 4 to 1. At the Nasdaq, more than 1.8 billion shares were exchanged, and advancing stocks outpaced decliners by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.

For tomorrow, only a handful of notable companies are expected to report their results. On the economic front, Initial Claims will hit the wires at 8:30 ET.