Market Wrap: Fed Says Housing Looks Robust; eBay Preps for Holidays; Sirius Gets Bullish in Battle

Market wrap-up for October 10th

End of the Day: S&P 500 down 8.9 to 1,432.56; Dow Jones down 128.6 to 13,344.97; Nasdaq down 13.2 to 3,051.78

The following is a brief summary of events moving markets today:

• Homes, homes, homes!: The Federal Reserve released its Beige Book for October today. The Fed said U.S. economic activity generally expanded modestly since its last report. Consumer spending inched up or stayed level in the 12 reporting districts.
  
  Notably, the Fed said that "[r]esidential real estate showed widespread improvement since the last report." Shrinking levels of inventories helped to push prices higher in some districts.
  
  
• So, do we spell it in all lowercase now?: eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) unveiled a new website design, more robust search engine, and speedier transaction capabilities to the media today, as it looks to bulk-up for the upcoming holiday season.
  
  In addition, the e-commerce giant said it would start dabbling in daily deals via its new eBay Lifestyle Deals segment. eBay tapped Google Ventures-backed Signpost to assist in aggregating the deals. Lifestyle Deals will debut in a few markets initially, with a broader expansion once kinks are worked out.
  
  
• Coming to a city near you: Walmart (NYSE: WMT) held its 19th Annual Meeting today, with CEO Mike Duke issuing positive comments on operations. In addition to seeing strong momentum in several key markets, Walmart will aim to reduce CapEx starting in its fiscal 2014 reporting year, beginning in February. Sales growth in FY14 will also be 5 percent to 7, with net sales rising $23 billion to $33 billion.
  
  
• Not even for a dozen Dum Dum Pops: JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon wouldn't buy Bear Stearns again if the U.S. came knocking. Dimon's comments came from a presentation ata Council on Foreign Affairs event today.
  
  Earlier in the month, NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman sued JPMorgan over certain Bear Stearns businesses, claiming deceit in selling mortgage-backed securities. For more color, click here.
  
  
• Every little bit helps: Sirius XM (Nasdaq: SIRI) CEO Mel Karmazin boosted subscriber expectations for FY12 today at a Liberty Media (Nasdaq: LMCA) conference. Sirius now expects to add an addition 200,000 net subs on the year, to 1.8 million.
  
  Amid the boosted metric, revenues, CapEx, and the like are still expected to come in-line with prior views.

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