Top 10 News Items 10/05-10/09: Gold Marks New All-Time High; Alcoa Kicks Off Earnings Season with a Beat; Sept. Retail Sales Better-Than-Expected

October 9, 2009 4:58 PM EDT

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street:

1. Demonstrating investors near- and medium-term concerns related to the US dollar and the stock market, gold prices hit new all-time highs this week. Gold finished this week's trading above $1,050 and related miners and producers rallied with the commodity. As the trade normally goes, the US dollar moved in opposition to gold.

2. Alcoa (NYSE: AA) kicked off the Q3 earnings season this week, beating the Street's estimates on both the top and bottom line. As Alcoa has previously been a "serial misser", traders cheered the news, also in hopes of what it could mean for the rest of the season, bidding up the stock by more than 11% this week.

3. Retail companies issued their sales results for the month of September this week, with most results looking like they are improving. Notably, Target (NYSE: TGT), JCPenny (NYSE: JCP), Kohl's (NYSE: KSS), American Eagle (NYSE: AEO) and Aeropostale (NYSE: ARO) raised guidance with their same store sales figures.

4. Bulls were pleasantly surprised on Tuesday when Australia's central bank surprisingly raised its core interest rate. The Reserve Bank of Australia raised its main cash rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.25%. The news sparked a rally in stocks and even more in commodities. The Dow rose 132 points on that day.

5. Reports that Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) is planning to enter the smartphone market with the support of AT&T (NYSE: T) and Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android software hit wires this week, causing investors to question on how the long-time PC maker would handle such a move. The stock finished this week about 4% higher.

6. Nancy Pelosi confirmed what had been only faint whisperings on Wall Street: an extension to the home-buyer tax credit will be considered by the House. As measured by the SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (NYSE: XHB), or XHB, homebuilders rallied more than 3% on the news Thursday.

8. This week's hot IPO came from Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq: VRSK). After pricing at $22, about a full dollar ahead of the top end of the company's expected range, shares rallied to over $27 on Wednesday and closed around $26.40 on Friday.

9. Pepsi (NYSE: PEP) reported solid Q3 earnings on Wednesday morning this week, also reaffirming FY09 guidance. Despite the report, traders sold the stock. Shares of Pepsi finished this week down modestly.

10. Surprising much of the investment world, the brains behind Renaissance Technologies, fund manager Simons, announced he would retire from the hedge fund at the end of this year. Simons' fund, which uses computers and mathematical models, has been a top performer for years and years.

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