U.S. Stocks Fade After Beige Book and Obama’s Speech (BP, GOOG, ORCL, HPQ)

U.S. Stocks tried to stage a recovery from the afternoon dip but failed, however, all three major indices still managed to close higher on Wednesday. The morning rally was put to a halt after President Obama’s speech acknowledging that the recovery has been “painfully slow” and urging the U.S. Congress to approve more business tax breaks and infrastructure spending to boost the economy. The Fed’s Beige Book report did not help to improve the mood much either. Although the report showed moderate growth across most of the 12 districts, it also pointed to a “widespread signs of deceleration”.

Overall, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up +46.32 points to 10,387.01, the S&P500 rose +7.03 points to 1,098.87, and the Nasdaq gained +19.98 points to 2,228.87.

The dollar fell against the euro and the Japanese yen to remain near the 15-year low. Crude oil futures fell back from session highs of $75.39 to settle at $74.67 a barrel — up 58 cents. Gold futures stay near the record high at $1,257.50 an ounce.

Word on the Street

• The BP blame game is bubbling up to the surface again as BP tried to play down its role in the Gulf of Mexico disaster and pointed out that multiple parties, including BP, Halliburton Co. and Transocean Ltd., were involved. Among these stocks, BP (BP) rallied 3.17%, Halliburton (HAL) gained 1.24%, and Transocean (RIG) added 1.30%.
• Today, the search giant, Google (GOOG) launched a new feature called “Google Instant” that gives users as-you-type search results. Here is an interesting question: how will be impacted by this change? Does each new instant search count, e.g., 5 characters equal 5 queries? Whatever the case may be, expect to see some wacky search market share reports over the next few months.
• Follow yesterday unexpected news from Oracle (ORCL) about its intention to hire HP’s ex-CEO Mark Hurd as president, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) let loose a lawsuit seeking to block Hurd’s move. However, this lawsuit is unlikely to succeed given California’s pro-employee stance. On a related note, this lawsuit could also fracture the relationship between Oracle and HP, making strategic partnership harder to forge in the future.
• Lockheed Martin (LMT), the world’s largest defense company, said about 25% of its executives opted for a voluntary retirement program designed to reduce costs amidst defense spending slowdown by the U.S. government.
• The Energy Department said that it expects the nation’s GDP to grow by 2.8 percent this year and by 2.3 percent in 2011. The good news? Oil will be cheaper.

Interesting Tidbits

• 6 Fastest Growing Careers of the Next Decade — These six professions are poised for growth over the coming years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• 9 Largest Collections (of Junk?) in the World — Are you a collector, or a hoarder? Is the value you gain from your collection worth the time and cost you’ve put into it? Here are some of the more common collections.
• 10 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Saving — If you still cannot save any money, here are 10 tricks to help you get the job done.

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