A bit of selling pressure sent major averages lower at the end of an otherwise upbeat week on Wall Street as Bank of America and General Electric’s numbers disappointed investors.  The Dow Jones industrial average, after closing above the 10,000 mark for two successive sessions, finished just below that level.  Despite the drop, stocks managed to post impressive gains on the week even as investors grew jittery about credit losses in the financial sector. 

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) said it lost $2.2 billion during the quarter after it wrote down almost $10 billion in bad loans and General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) revenue numbers were below Street projections.  Higher loan losses aggravated investors’ concerns as Citigroup (NYSE:C) and JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) had also reported higher loan losses during the quarter.  General Electric’s (NYSE:GE) results were impacted by lower earnings at its GE Capital unit.    

The 30-share Dow Jones industrial average fell

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• Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) reported a higher-than-estimated third-quarter loss, with a loss of 26 cents as revenue of $26.04 billion missed Zacks estimates of $27.61 billion.  The firm added $2.1 billion to credit loss reserves

• General Electric (NYSE:GE) reported third-quarter earnings of 27 cents a share ex-items, 7 cents above Zacks estimates, on revenues of $37.8 billion, a 20% drop which missed estimates of $39.78 billion. CEO Jeff Immelt noted, "While it remains a tough environment for GE Capital, we are seeing signs of stabilization. Every segment at GE Capital was profitable with the exception of Real Estate, which is experiencing a tough environment but where we believe the risks are well understood and manageable"

• First Horizon National (NYSE:FHN) reported a third-quarter loss of 24 cents a share, versus Zacks estimates of a 34 cent loss, on revenues of $495 million

• Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) reported a third-quarter profit of

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div style="text-align: justify;"JP Morgan is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"General Electric (NYSE:GE) /spanto Overweight from Neutral and raising target to $17 (prev. $12).br /br /Firm notes the the downside here looks attractive versus others that have run, which, combined with an ongoing discount for sentiment, sets up for an interesting relative risk/reward, in their view. Given the recent run in the most disliked stocks, and how quickly sentiment has turned, they would rather be early, especially for one such as this that has underperformed for such an extended period of time, and for which there has been arguably the most controversy. In short, the firm thinks this is one of the last “non-consensus, a little good news can go a long way” stocks in the group.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Starting point: Negative sentiment and under-performance/span. GE is now among the lowest-rated stocks in our sector (only 30% Buy) with ongoing fear ...

A smaller-than-expected rise in weekly jobless claims and upbeat earnings from companies helped stock markets extend their impressive run this week as investors found new reason to put money into stocks.  All stock indexes managed bigger gains as the session progressed but lost some momentum towards the end.        

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 83 points, or 0.9% and the broader S&P 500 index added 11 points, or 1.2%, to 986.75, its highest close since November 4.  The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 16 points, or 0.8%, to close at its highest level since October 1.

The much-awaited GDP report this morning demonstrated a smaller-than-expected 1% contraction, signaling the recession is losing force. Expectations were for a 1.5% drop.

Yesterday, GE (NYSE:GE) led the Dow Jones industrial average higher after the conglomerate was upgraded to “buy" from “neutral" by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS). The analysts at Goldman Sachs said chances of GE

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U.S. stock index futures rose on Thursday following another string of stronger-than-expected quarterly corporate profits, a broker upgrade for General Electric Co , and fresh indications that the global economic downturn is easing.

Companies posting solid results before the bell included AON Corp and industrial conglomerate Tyco International Ltd .

Goldman Sachs raised its recommendation on GE to “buy,” saying comments made by the chairman of a key congressional committee suggests a decreased chance of a break up of the finance arm of the diversified industrial manufacturer.

U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank in an interview with Bloomberg late on Wednesday suggested there was broadening support for regulatory reform that would not mandate the separation of GE Capital, Goldman analysts said.

GE shares rose 5.5 percent to $12.94 before the bell.

“A lot of this is a follow up of the resilience we’ve seen in the market over a couple of weeks. The clear sentiment is

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div style="text-align: justify;"Goldman Sachs is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"General Electric (NYSE:GE)/span to Buy from Neutral with a $15 price target (prev. $13) as as comments reported after the close by US House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank suggest broadening support for regulatory reform that would not mandate the separation of GE Capital. While numerous uncertainties remain, Goldman is reducing their probability assumption for a costly GECS separation to 25% from 50% and this drives their higher target. Greater potential for a manageable regulatory outcome should prompt investors to focus on longer-term benefits of economic and credit stabilization to GE shares.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Catalyst/spanbr /After the close, Bloomberg reported that Barney Frank indicated that GE and “manufacturers with finance businesses should be allowed to keep the units under a revision to rules that govern banking.” This seems to strengthen the view that legislative support for reform requiring GECS separation as ...

Earlier today, General Electric (GE) released its 2Q09 results. Clearly the effects of the global economic environment have weighed upon GE's earnings during the quarter. We anticipate the continuation of a lackluster global economy over the next several quarters. However, the company continues to focus on aggressively controlling costs and driving working capital improvements, actively maintaining its backlog, while placing efforts one higher-margin services and running its financial services business with credit quality restraint. GE’s 2Q09 earnings from continuing operations were $2.9 billion, or $0.26 per common share, down 47% year-over-year. Revenues from continuing operations were $39.1 billion, down 17% year-over-year (down 12% adjusting for FX), in line with general guidance. Cash generated from operating activities totaled $7.1 billion, ahead of plan, and total company backlog of equipment and services held about steady at $169 billion. Energy Infrastructure earnings grew 13% year-over-year; Technology Infrastructure earnings ...

While Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner left open the potential rescue for CIT Group (CIT) -- a commercial financing and leasing products lending entity with and management advisory services focused on small and middle market companies worldwide -- clearly time would otherwise be running out for this company. Its shares have been under extreme pressure as investors doubt whether the company can pay off its mounting debts without filing for bankruptcy.   If CIT gets bailed out, the funds would most likely be supplied by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program. This program was used by General Electric (GE) and others in the past, and would aid in easing investor fears as CIT would be permitted to issue short-term debt guaranteed by the FDIC. An alternative would be for CIT to issue higher yielding debt without government backing, which might attract investors with a potential ...

Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD) has enjoyed some impressive earnings estimate increases lately, including sharp gains in just the past week.

< ?DART(15);?> The more than 7% advance in its share price today hasn't been near as dramatic, but is enough to make this retailing staple a Zacks #1 Rank Top Performer for Tuesday.

Volume today is approximately 1.476 million, which is slightly above the average of 1.452 million.

Earnings Estimates Soaring

The current profit consensus for the fiscal year ending January 2010 is $2.06 per share. A month ago, the outlook was only 34 cents, marking a more than 500% improvement as 4 of 6 covering analysts revised higher.

That gain includes an advance of more than 36% in just the past 7 days.

Meanwhile, expectations for next fiscal year, ending January 2011, are also on the rise. Estimates are higher

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Here is a list of 2 Penny Stock Companies which are both Nasdaq listed and contain highly favourable chart patterns - bottomed out with uptrend behaviours on the graphs, along with great PRs. Take a look…

EF Johnson Technologies, Inc.

(Public, NASDAQ:EFJI) - Today announced that it will highlight its award-winning ES Series of Project 25 radios and new products including the Lightning(TM) Control Head for the 5300 Series Mobile Radio and the Discover(TM) GPS Speaker Microphone for the 5100 ES Series Portable Radio at the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC) April 23 - 25, 2009 at the Indiana Convention Center. [link]

Dayton Superior Corporation

(Public, NASDAQ:DSUP) - The leading North American provider of specialized products for the nonresidential concrete construction market, today announced that

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