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October 16, 2013: U.S. markets opened higher Wednesday morning after negotiations for a Senate deal got started again on Tuesday night. Shares had already touched daily highs by the time a deal was announced. Senate passage appears to be a lock, and word from House Speaker Boehner is that the Republicans will not block a House vote. The President is reported to be prepared to sign a bill as soon as it is presented to him.

European and Asian markets closed mixed today while Latin American markets were higher.

Thursday’s calendar includes speeches by Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans, Kansas City Fed President Esther George, and Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota and the following scheduled data releases and events (all times Eastern).

• 8:30 a.m. – Housing starts (delayed due to government shutdown)
• 8:30 a.m. – New claims for unemployment data (delayed)
• 9:15 a.m. – Industrial production (delayed)
• 10:00 a.m. – Philadelphia Fed survey
• 10:30 a.m. – EIA weekly natural gas storage report (delayed)
• 11:00 a.m. – EIA weekly petroleum status report (delayed)
• 4:30 p.m. – Fed balance sheet and money supply

Here are the closing bell levels for Wednesday:

• S&P500 1721.54 (+23.48; +1.38%)
• DJIA 15373.83 (+205.82; +1.36%)
• NASDAQ 3839.43 (+45.42; +1.2%)
• 10YR TNOTE 2.671% (-0.53125)
• Gold $1,282.30 (+9.10; +0.7%)
• WTI Crude oil $102.29 (+1.08; +1.1%)
• Euro/Dollar: 1.3518 (+0.0003; +0.02%)

Big Earnings Movers: Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) is up 2.3% at $14.56 on decent results. MGIC Investment Corp. (NYSE: MTG) is up 14.9% at $8.34. PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP) is up 2.1% at $82.27 on better snack sales. Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) is up 1.3% at $23.68 on modest results. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is down 0.9% at $33.09 and probably deserves more love than it’s getting.

Stocks on the Move: Veeva Systems Inc. (NYSE: VEEV) is up a whopping 85.5% at $37.15 on huge demand following its IPO. Geron Corp. (NYSE: GERN) is up 39.7% at $4.37. Molycorp Inc. (NYSE: MCP) is down 1.8% at $5.48 following a secondary stock offering.

In all, 257 NYSE stocks put up new 52-week highs today, while only 45 stocks posted new lows.