Dow Advances For Third Straight Day

The Dow advanced for the third day in a row by gaining 36 points to 8479 as consumer confidence unexpectedly rose in November and the government introduced two new programs which will provide $800 billion in loans.  Nasdaq lost 7 points to 1465.

On the upside

Stifel Nicolaus analyst David Ross upgraded YRC Worldwide (Nasdaq: YRCW) after the trucking company announced plans to pay down some debt with a tender offer.

China Sunergy (Nasdaq: CSUN) swung to a profit for the third quarter as revenue surged.

Bargain hunters lifted shares of Life Time Fitness (NYSE: LTM).

On the downside

RBC Capital Markets analyst Robert Breza lowered his earnings estimate for Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) and cut his price target for the security software provider.

Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO) announced plans to cut more than $1 billion in expenses by shuttering most of its offices in the United States and Canada for five days.

Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) warned that sales will continue to fall through fiscal 2009 due to the stagnant economy.

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of more than 5 to 4 on the NYSE while decliners edged out advancers by more than 10 to 9 on Nasdaq.  The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks slipped 2 points to 434.