Market Wrap: Germany to Back ESM; Lowe's Hammers One Home; Buffett Loves Banks; More Homes All But Sold

Market wrap-up for February 27th

End of the Day: Dow Jones down 1.4 to 12,981.51; Nasdaq up 2.4 to 2,966.16; S&P 500 up 1.9 to 1,367.59

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

• Merkel pulls Germany in kicking and screaming...mostly: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her cohorts voted overwhelmingly to endorse a second Greek bailout, 496-90. Though Germans appeared to be against the vote, Merkel said it would be "irresponsible" to let Greece slip into bankruptcy.
  
  Merkel also said she's prepared to accelerate Germany's payment into the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) with a payment of €11 billion this year and an additional €11 billion next year.
  
  
• Earnings so good, you'd think pending sales would've improved: Lowe's Co.'s (NYSE: LOW) ended Monday 0.5 percent higher following solid fourth-quarter results. Earnings in the quarter were 29 cents per share, after adjustment, while revs came in at $11.63 billion. The Street was expecting EPS of 24 cents and revs of $11.34 billion.
  
  Looking ahead, Lowe's sees fiscal 2012 EPS of of $1.75 to $1.85, versus the consensus of $1.79.
  
  For more color, click here.
  
  
• Doubling-up on pending sales: Pending home sales rose a better-than-expected 2.0 percent in January, besting consensus views by about 1 percent. December's 3.5 percent drop was revised to a 1.9 percent loss.
  
  Amid the rise in January sales, the year-over-year increase of 10.3 percent fell just shy of the 10.7 percent gain analysts expected.
  
  For more color on the numbers, click here.
  
  
• Buffett berates bank bashers: Early Monday, following his annual shareholder letter released over the weekend, Warren Buffett spoke on CNBC and disclosed owning shares of JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM), which ended the session up about 2 percent.
  
  That's not be best part, though. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) also owns Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), the largest U.S. mortgage lender, and said in his letter that "Large numbers of people who have ‘lost’ their house through foreclosure have actually realized a profit because they carried out refinancings earlier that gave them cash in excess of their cost...In these cases, the evicted homeowner was the winner, and the victim was the lender."
  
  Buffett also has a $5 billion investment riding on Bank of America (NYSE: BAC).
  
  
• At least we're smarter..: According to data from the New York Fed, student loan debt rose slightly to $867 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $856 billion the prior quarter. Its not just students taking on the burden either, parents also share some of the load when signing or co-signing for a loan to pay for school.

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