The markets were up today led by energy stocks as oil settled at $72.68.  The Dow Jones was up 0.37% closing at 8770.92, with the S&P up 0.61% closing at 944.89.  The NASDAQ was up 9.29 closing at 1862.37.  Treasury prices were down as the yield closed at 3.862%.  Gold settled at $962.00 as the dollar continues to weaken against other currencies. 

In major news today, Bank of America [BAC: 12.97, +0.99 (+8.26%)] CEO Ken Lewis appeared at the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to talk about BofA’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.  Lawmakers wanted to know from Lewis why a deal that was approved by shareholders in December with no government aid, wound up costing $20 billion dollars to taxpayers, for completion in January.  Lawmakers also questioned Lewis about knowing about losses at Merrill earlier then reported, as internal e-mails in the Fed suggested.  Some have speculated that Lewis went to the government before shareholders about Merrill’s losses, and said that it would back out of it because of the material adverse change clause, all in an effort to get money from the government.  Lewis said that he decided to complete the deal because of the reaction by regulators and that he did not believe that he would be successful in using the material adverse change clause.  Lewis said that overall that the acquisition of Merrill Lynch was best for Bank of America and the markets as a whole.

In energy news, Exxon Mobil [XOM: 74.05, +0.21 (+0.28%)] and TransCanada [TRP: 30.48, +0.70 (+2.35%)] announced that they would build a $26 billion natural gas pipeline together, extending from the North Slope of Alaska to Canada and the contiguous United States.  This pipeline project is competing with one that was jointly proposed by ConocoPhillips [COP: 45.55, -0.21 (-0.46%)] and BP PLC [BP: 52.21, +0.05 (+0.10%)], who up until now were vying to have Exxon work with them to build the proposed pipeline.  Exxon has the largest share of natural gas on Alaska’s North Slope, and TransCanada’s partnership gives the Canadian company strong backing for its project.  TransCanada already has the state of Alaska’s support for the pipeline, as TransCanada has promised a $500 million dollar subsidy to Alaska.  BP and Conoco are not done yet as law makers are hoping that the four can merge the two projects.  The pipeline will take 10 years to build and will move 4.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day.

May foreclosure numbers fell 6% from April to 321,480 homes; this number was up 18% from 2008.  Foreclosures in March, April, and May have been higher than usual, as Fannie May [FNM: 0.67, -0.01 (-1.47%)] and Freddie Mac [FRE: 0.71, 0.00 (0.00%)] lifted their temporary stop to foreclosures that they enacted in November.  Foreclosures were once again highest in Nevada, California, Florida, and Arizona as these locations were very popular during the housing boom, with another series of foreclosures possibly coming, especially in these states, as a reset for pay-option adjustable-rate mortgages is coming.  Investors reacted very negatively to this news as stocks of major housing companies Lennar [LEN: 8.20, -0.46 (-5.31%)], Centex [CTX: 8.52, -0.49 (-5.44%)], and Pulte Homes [PHM: 8.87, -0.54 (-5.74%)] were all down over 5% on the news.  Housing has not seen great data that has indicated to the market that the housing crisis is over, and until then the majority of investors will remain skeptical on housing stocks.

Check back tomorrow for another market recap from Bullish Bankers.

- Matt Shannon

Disclosure: The fund the author is associated with is long XOM.

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