Ford May Not Need Bailout

The markets closed higher with the Dow leaping 270 points to 8419 as bargain hunters found deals and Ford said it may not need a government loan to survive.  Nasdaq jumped 52 points to 1450.

On the upside

Shares of Nexen (NYSE: NXY) surged although the energy company issued a press release stating that there was no corporate news to account for the stock price gain.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the former chief executive of AOL, Jonathan Miller, was attempting to raise capital to purchase all or part of Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) for $28 billion to $30 billion.

General Electric (NYSE: GE) announced job cuts as well as a restructuring of its finance business and warned that fourth quarter results will be at the low end of its previous guidance.

On the downside

Skyworks Solutions (Nasdaq: SWKS) blamed falling demand for lowering its earnings and revenue outlooks for the current quarter.

Sierra Wireless (Nasdaq: SWIR) will pay approximately $276.1 million in cash to acquire French machine-to-maching wireless technology company Wavecom SA.

Morgan Keegan downgraded Callon Petroleum (NYSE: CPE).

In the broad market, advancing issues outpaced decliners by a margin of nearly 3 to 1 on the NYSE and by nearly 5 to 2 on Nasdaq.  The Russell 2000 which tracks small cap stocks surged 25 points to 442.