24/7 Wall St. Closing Bell (F, GM, NBG, ALU, YHOO, PFE, HD, ADM, BBX, EXEL)

The markets are beyond jittery.  From a massively overbought market discounting a recession entirely back to a market dominated by the woes of Europe.  The Europeans cannot get their bailouts straight because each government can effectively threaten to dissolve in order to put the decision off for weeks or months.  Greece’s calls for PM Papandreou to resign so a referendum vote on the bailout could be made was the big blow today, although this move to block or delay the deal on the table for haircuts and austerity was later in the day said to not be under threat. 

Today’s unofficial closing bells in the markets were as follows: DJIA down 295 at 11,659.28; the S&P 500 Index was down almost 35 points to 1,218.34; and the NASDAQ was down by over 77 points to 2606.96.  Here are the statistic stock winners and losers during October as well as year-to-date in 2011.  There are the S&P’s ten best and the S&P’s ten worst performers during the month of October; and here are the S&P’s top 20 performers of all of 2011 followed by the S&P’s ten biggest losers year-to-date.

The Institute for Supply Management showed that manufacturing in October remained above the growth/expansion line of 50.0 and came in at 50.8.  This was at 51.6 in the prior month and Reuters data showed a consensus call for a slight uptick to 52.0.  Ben Bernanke and the FOMC got their two-day meeting underway this morning.  On the car front, U.S. auto sales for October came out in positive territory but under expectations and Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) was down over 3% at $11.29 late in the day and General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) was down an even wider amount with a shares down almost 9% at $23.56 late in the day.

To show just how bad Greece is being treated due to their call for a vote of confidence, National Bank of Greece SA (NYSE: NBG) was down about 13% at $0.465 late in the day. A pre-earnings loser on an analyst downgrade was Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) as the market continues to remain cautious as this ADR was down by almost 8% at $2.52 late in the day.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) is in the middle of an identity crisis. Imagine trying to sell the company but then making an acquisition of an advertising solutions outfit. Yahoo! shares were down almost 4% at $15.03 late in the day.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) was higher after earnings as strong international demand helped the Big Pharma leader; shares were up 1.5% at $19.55 late in the day. The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE: HD) was the only other DJIA component higher on the day with shares up only $0.03 at $35.83 in the last hour.

Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) was lower, another negative against its turnaround.  The ag-giant’s earnings were short of estimates on lower oilseed margins and on a tight corn supply.  Shares were down 3.7% at $27.86 in the last hour.

The biggest winner on the day by far was BankAtlantic Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: BBX) after BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) is acquiring its retail lending unit for as much as $301 million.  BankAtlantic shares were up a whopping 109% at $4.96 in the final hour.

Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXEL) was the big loser of the day, the daily implosion if you will, after the FDA delayed the review of its prostate cancer drug trial.  With no other products on the market, Exelixis was down 38.5% at $4.75 in the last hour of the trading day. 

JON C. OGG