Russell tanks over 4% at closing; ISSC, POZN and OSIS lead gainers

The Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) tumbled 4.18%, and is now down 9.2% for the year. The Dow is now down 7.1% for 2009, while the S&P 500 is off 6.4%. Some of today’s small-cap gainers were Innovative Solutions & Support (Nasdaq:ISSC), Pozen Inc. (Nasdaq:POZN) and OSI Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:OSIS).

Other Market Watch highlights today included:

• The weekly claims report came in at 588,000, which was slightly above the projection of 580,000.
• The number of Americans filing for continued benefits rose to 4.77 million, the highest on record.
• Durable goods orders fell for the fifth consecutive month, with the headline figure off about 2.5%, slightly below the projection for a slide of 2%.
• In Europe, confidence tumbled to the lowest level in 24 years and the German unemployment rate rose more than expected.
• Just one day after generating the second-biggest rally of the year, the Russell slumped to the third worst daily decline.
• The gloomy economic reports overshadowed corporate profit reports, but those were primarily downbeat today anyhow.
• Today was simply a seller’s market. Stocks were down, Treasury markets were down, crude oil was down, commodities were down.
• Crude oil prices closed down 1.7%, losing $0.72 a barrel, to $41.44 and energy stocks lost about 3%.
• Looking ahead to Friday’s session, the market will have another buffet of economic reports to digest, the biggest of which should be the GDP report ahead of the opening.

Small Cap Gainers:

• Innovative Solutions & Support issues Q2 2009 guidance above analysts' estimates; shares closed up 19%. See (Nasdaq:ISSC).
• Pozen Inc. informed by FDA that endoscopic gastric ulcer incidence . . .

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