Stocks Level After Biggest Gain In Months

As Marketwatch puts it "market bottoms do not announce themselves, but there's a solid case to be made that this is a bear-market rally, not the birth of a new bull."

Let's listen to the midday comment of Alfred E. Goldman, Chief Market Strategist at Wachovia Securities.

An early advance lost some momentum, but the Dow and Nasdaq remained modestly higher at midsession on hopes the worst of the banking crisis may be over. The Dow cracked the 7000 mark in early trading, and has been up as many as 89 points. The Nasdaq has been up as many as 27 points. At 12:30 PM Eastern, the Dow was up 0.1%, the S&P 500 was up 0.2%, and the Nasdaq was up 0.5%.

Financial stocks gained amid plans by the White House to use capital injections as an incentive to get banks to sell distressed securities to investors. Citigroup rose 8 cents to 1.53 and Bank of America gained 7 cents to 4.86. Ford gained 13 cents to 1.99. The automaker said labor concessions will improve liquidity and help it avoid asking for government aid. Hewlett Packard was up 1.26 at 28.30 and added 11 points to the Dow following an analyst upgrade. Economic news is limited. A private report said mortgage applications rose 11% last week as the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage dropped below 5%.

The NYSE was 5-3 positive on issues, 2-1 positive on volume. The Nasdaq was 3-2 positive on issues, 2-1 positive on volume. The 10-year Treasury note was down 2/32 to yield 3.01%.