Pres. Bush's Friday morning announcement

[Pa(b)st Prime]

Quote from BullAlert:

Are you being coy are are you truly this baffled? Have you not observed the market's reaction to such events this entire year?

Bear Stearns
Every rate cut decision
The passage of the $700B bailout after weeks of moaning
Obama's first press conference

These are just the ones I can think of quickly. The market whipsaws on every bit of news. It is highly probable that GM would have been down 90% on Friday without the news. It is naive at best to suggest "good" news produces gains; in this case it simply tempered GM's loss.

I was short into a few of those rate cuts and no there wasn't a lot of two sided trade afterwords. Although I had this gem on the Sept/07 discount rate cut.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=101842&highlight=seconds

You revalue and then its over. Buyers at 9:00 were thinking GM. Buyers at 10:00 had many other reasons. GOOG could give two shits about Detroit.

But yes I agree that GM would've been down hard without TARP. HOWEVER I think the market rose because sellers were choked off into size value bids-particularly in tech-rather than the auto bailout. The media might blab about jobs, suppliers, dealers etal but IMO the market has discounted and concessioned the death of the American car business weeks ago. Not to repeat myself but by virtue of the fact GM still closed lower tells you everything you need to know about the markets skepticism over a bailout standing between GM and recievership. Just like last Friday's recovery after a horrific payroll-buyers are more in control on dips.