Confidence In Obama Lifts Markets

Despite bleak economic reports, the markets surged to close sharply higher as investors gain confidence in President-elect Obama's economic team and stimulus plan. The Dow leaped 247 points to 8727 while Nasdaq soared 67 points to 1532.

On the upside

In a pretrial ruling, a judged determined that several chipmakers violated patents held by Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS) covering computer memory.

Shares of DryShips (Nasdaq: DRYS) surged after Motley Fool spotlighted the drybulk carrier as attractively valued.

Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI) introduced its official National Professional Paintball League Championship 2009 game for the Xbox 360, Playstation and Wii.

The Treasury Department infused American International Group (NYSE: AIG) with $40 billion in exchange for preferred stock and warrants to purchase common shares.

A new study found that Apple's iPhone (Nasdaq: AAPL) is more reliable than Research in Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM) BlackBerry with the BlackBerry experiencing a failure rate twice that of the iPhone.


On the downside

Pimco California Municipal Income Fund II (NYSE: PCK) warned that the economic downturn may force the fund to delay paying its November dividend.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 6 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 4 to 1 on Nasdaq. The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks rocketed 26 points to 469.

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