STOCKS MAKE BIG COMEBACK ON DAY OF BIG ECB ACTION: Here's What You Need To Know

Sam Ro | Dec. 21, 2011, 4:00 PM | 669 | 6

Oracle dragged down the Nasdaq and LTRO was trending on Twitter.

First, the scoreboard:

Dow: 12,107.7, +4.2, +0.0%
S&P 500: 1,243.7, +2.4, +0.2%
NASDAQ: 2,577.9, -25.7, -1.0%

And now, the top stories:

So, the European Central Bank (ECB) published the results of its Long Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO), a massive funding plan aimed at boosting liquidity for banks through cheap 3-year loans. And it turns out banks borrowed like crazy. 523 banks requested €489 billion ($640 billion). The market reaction, however, was unfavorable. European stocks sank, the euro dived, bond yields jumped, and U.S. futures fell. Click here for a comprehensive analysis of the LTRO.
In other Europe news, S&P warned EFSF capacity would likely shrink if France were to lose its AAA credit rating. In other ratings news, S&P cut Hungary's debt rating to junk status.
November existing home sales came in at 4.42 million at an annualized rate, up from 4.25 million in October. Economists were expecting... Well, they were expecting some sort of number. Earlier this month, the National Association of Realtors (NAR), who publishes the existing home sales report, warned that it would revise down all of the existing home sales data since 2007. Today we learned those revisions were huge, with numbers being lowered by 14%.
In unwelcome news, oil prices jumped after inventories plunged 10.6 million barrels to 323.6 million. This was the biggest drop in over a decade.
Oracle has a long history of surprising investors with better-than-expected earnings. So investors were absolutely shocked when Oracle missed its earnings expectations. Shares plunged 11.8%. The software giant reported EPS of $0.54 on revenue of $8.79 billion, missing analysts' estimate of $0.57 and $9.23 billion, respectively. You can bet the whisper number expectations were probably higher. This comes after Red Hat's disappointing earnings announcement on Monday, which followed warnings from Intel and Texas Instruments earlier this month. The whole tech sector got dragged down. IBM, Cisco Systems, and Hewlett-Packard were the worst performers, respectively, in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Research In Motion shares jumped 10% for a change. There's some chatter that someone might acquire the beleaguered maker of the BlackBerry. Some names that have been floating include Amazon, Microsoft, and Nokia.
Bank of America's Countrywide unit is reportedly paying $335 million to settle mortgage fraud charges. BAC shares climbed 1% today.
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