Bonds Scream Recession

To wit, homebuilder stocks soared again Thursday on low interest rates and news of an upgrade by Bank of America analyst Daniel Oppenheim. He cited improved buyer traffic, lower prices and bullish construction trends. Oppenheim was one of the first analysts to pull the plug on the homebuilder sector in 2005 when the residential housing market peaked.

Oppenheim upgraded shares of Standard Pacific(SPF Quote) to buy from sell and boosted shares of Toll Brothers(TOL Quote), Pulte Homes(PHM Quote), NVR(NVR Quote), Meritage Homes(MTH Quote) and Ryland(RYL Quote) to neutral from sell.

Shares of these stocks jumped between 5% and 11% Thursday.

Broadly, the major stock market indices struggled throughout the day to turn upward, but bulls overcame another day of higher oil prices and slow-growth fears.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day up 0.1% to close at 12,239.15, fighting against a 1% decline in General Motors(GM Quote) on news that investor Kirk Kerkorian continues to sell his position in the automaker. Kerkorian and his investment firm Tracinda Corp. further cut the stake to 4.9% from 7.4%, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The S&P 500 closed up 0.2% at 1402.44, and the Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.1% at 2434.77, while shares of Microsoft(MSFT Quote) closed down 0.5% as the company released to the market its new operating system Vista. Retailers' shares were mostly down Thursday as November's same-store sales were largely disappointing. Wal-Mart(WMT Quote) confirmed its 0.1% decline in sales, sending its shares down 1.5%. The S&P Retail Index fell 0.1% on the day.