MarketWatch.com - MarketPulse
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve added $17.5 billion in temporary reserves to the banking system Monday through overnight repurchase agreements, or repos, through the New York Fed's Open Market Desk. "The large operations this morning are intended to offset the drain to reserves arising from an elevated balance in the Treasury's account at the Fed," the New York Fed said in a statement on its Web site. The Fed injected $13.5 billion through a 4-day repo, and $4 billion through a 2-day repo. "Clearly the Desk is looking to provide a lot of liquidity into the system for the turn of the year," wrote analysts at Action Economics.
MarketWatch.com - MarketPulse
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Delta Air Lines and ExpressJet Holdings saw their shares rise 2.1% and 3.6%, respectively, to pace a broad advance in the airline sector on the last trading day of the year. The Amex Airline Index added almost 1% to 34.69 points on Monday even as crude advanced toward $97 a barrel. Frontier Airlines , Mesa Air Group and JetBlue Airways were the only decliners among the 14 components in the benchmark index.