Stocks Stop the Bleeding

As for the day's research calls, JPMorgan upgraded Boeing (BA Quote) to neutral from underweight but cut its rating on Lockheed Martin (LMT Quote) to underweight from neutral.

Boeing added 0.2% to $87.37. Lockheed shed 0.2% to $97.35.

ThinkEquity raised Research In Motion (RIMM Quote) to buy from accumulate, and Merrill Lynch downgraded Deutsche Bank (DB Quote), Lehman (LEH Quote) and other brokers to neutral from buy.

RIM was higher by 1.4%, and Deutsche tacked on 0.2%. Lehman, on the other hand, lost 1.1%.

Crude futures rose following the latest weekly inventory report from the Energy Department. The near-month April contract reversed early losses and ended higher by 33 cents at $61.79 a barrel. Natural gas lost 23 cents to $7.30 per million British thermal units.

Last week, crude inventories increased by 1.4 barrels. Distillate supplies fell by 3.8 million barrels, while gasoline stocks slipped by 1.9 million barrels.

Metals prices finished with declines. Gold dropped $14.70 to close at $672.50 an ounce, and silver was lower by 45 cents at $14.23 an ounce.