S&P 500 Tries to Leave August on a High Note

The Standard & Poors 500 Index was finishing its worst month since May with a
powerful kick, gaining almost 12 points, or about 1%, to over 1,224. Investors
reacted positively to reports on the labor and manufacturing sectors. For the
past five days of trading, the S&P is higher by more than 4%. Gold and oil were
down in the morning session. Today, advancing stocks outnumbered those declining
by better than 4-to-1. Leading the market higher by more than 5% was Joy Global
(NASDAQ: JOYG ), higher by around $4.25 to over $86.80. The farm and
construction machinery company reported higher profits of 46%, which pleased
Wall Street. JOY is up 13% for the week and 46% for the year. Also up more than
5% was Tesoro Corp. (NYSE: TSO ), gaining about $1.30 per share to around
$24.80. The oil and gas company was upgraded by RBC Capital Markets on
Wednesday, giving the company three upgrades since early July. Up more than 18%
for the week, Tesora has more than doubled for the year. Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:
RHT ) picked up more than $1.70 in the morning session to over $39.50 a share, a
jump of more than 4.5%. The worlds leading provider of open source solutions
announced the expansion of customer involvement in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, its
next major product release. Red Hat is up more than 8% for the week and 9% for
the year. Down by almost 2% was Altera (NASDAQ: ALTR ), dropping more than 70
cents per share to under $36.70. Insider sales and a change in consensus analyst
rating were taking the PLD manufacturer lower. Altera is up more than 3% for the
week and 6% for the year. Altera received an "outperform" from Pacific Crest
this morning. It already was upgraded twice in August, by Miller Tabak and
Barclays Capital. Also down about 2% was CF Industries Holdings (NYSE: CF ),
losing about $3.75 per share to around $186. The chemical company was downgraded
in a consensus analyst report. There have been four positive analyst
recommendations for CF Holdings in the past month. The most recent, on Tuesday,
was the reiteration of a "strong buy" by Feltl and Company. Also on its way
down was semiconductor maker Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX ), off about 0.6% to under
$31.30, falling around 20 cents per share. Xilinc received a "market
perform" rating from Pacific Crest this morning. Jonathan Yates does not own
any of the stocks mentioned in this article.