Friday, October 24, 2008

Dow up 172 as stocks stage a comeback

Energy stocks powered an afternoon recovery on another wildly volatile day. Microsoft shares came in after the bell with better than expected earnings. Stocks mostly recovered from big losses at the close of a volatile day, despite weakness in technology stocks. At the close, the Dow Jones industrials were up 172 points, or 2%, to 8,691. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 11 points, 1.3%, to 908, but the Nasdaq Composite Index was off 12 points, 0.7%, to 1,604.

The market laggards were health care and materials stocks.

Futures trading tonight suggested stocks would open Friday slightly lower in expectation that members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will agree to cut oil production to support slumping crude prices.

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