Market Wrap-Up

, occasionaly observed on the first Wednesday of the month, lets school kids say what they don't mean and traders bid up whatever they wouldn't touch the day before with a 10-foot pole.

Wall Street embraced the holiday with the enthusiasm befitting first-graders, befriending the same energy and mining ETFs it has bullied mercilessly over the last month. Meanwhile, the financial, consumer and telecom sectors surrendered some of the prior day's relief gains.

Freddie Mac's losses offered the latest unsightly view of the housing bust, the ailing mortgage giant warning that the price of homes underlying its loan portfolio could fall as much as another 20%. But home builders managed to crawl higher.

Crude slipped below $119 a barrel despite inventory data implying solid gasoline demand. Yet energy plays gushed, while transports stalled. It was, after all, Opposite Day.

Winners

The

PowerShares QQQ Trust

Cisco Systems

Research in Motion

Foster Wheeler

The iShares Dow Jones U.S. Oil and Gas exploration index also staged a comeback, propelled by the strong gains among energy producers and refiners. Kindred spirits Market Vectors Steel, Market Vectors Coal and SPDR S&P Metals and Mining came along for the ride.

PowerShares International Dividend Achievers, a large value offering made up of overseas banks and utilities, yielded some cream on top of its 5% dividend yield over the trailing 12 months. Real cows were also in demand, as the iPath DJ AIG Livestock Sub-Index ETN and the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF revived.

Bargain hunters shopped the iShares FTSE Nareit Retail, a proxy for retail U.S. properties.

Losers

The cows' gain was the grain producers' loss, as foodstuff prices continued to get cropped. The

iPath DJ AIG Grain Sub-Index ETN

SPDR S&P Retail

iShares S&P World ex-US Property Index

CurrencyShares Japanese Yen trust

Thursday Notebook

Earnings

Cardinal Health

Fortress Investment Group

Toyota Motor

Sirius Satellite Radio

Economic Data
Initial Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m.), Pending Home Sales (10 a.m.)

Quick Take

A look at how the industry's most popular ETFs did on Wednesday: