Stocks saw a modest bounce at the open this morning, with the Dow up 42 points after a half-hour, following yesterday’s titanic losses, the Wall Street Journal reports. The S&P and Nasdaq rose 0.5% and 1.32% respectively. Panic was staved off by some sound economic data, as new jobless claims dropped by 16,000 last week, beating analyst estimates, and several key lending rates declined.
It was a busy day for earnings reports, with Citigroup beating expectations on a $2.8-billion net loss, and Merrill Lynch's losses climbing to $5.2 billion. Both stocks rose about 4% in pre-market trading. Yesterday saw the Dow drop 733 points, its second-biggest drop ever.
(More stock market stories.)