Stocks Make Way Off Lows Despite More Grim Data

Bloomberg reported that industrial conglomerate and Dow stock General Electric (GE Quote) was in talks to secure investments from several Asian sovereign wealth funds.

Among technology companies, Yahoo! (YHOO Quote) is still in talks to purchase Time Warner's (TWX Quote) AOL business, according to another report by Bloomberg.

Moving on to commodities, crude oil was losing $3.39 to $50.23 a barrel. For a time, oil went below $50. Gold was up $1.10 to $737.10.

Longer-dated U.S. Treasury securities were soaring in price as investors sought safety from the troubled stock market. The 10-year was up 1-21/32, yielding 3.13%, and the 30-year was adding 3-20/32 to yield 3.72%. The dollar was strengthening vs. the euro and pound, but plummeting against the yen.

Across the seas, European exchanges such as the FTSE in London and the DAX in Frankfurt were trading lower. In Asia, Japan's Nikkei and Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed with major losses.