Markets Roar At Opening

Zoom! Wall Street shot out of the gates in the first 15 minutes of trading today, as the markets recouped much of their last-15-minute swoon from yesterday.

The U.S. markets were nudged to a high opening this morning by an overnight global rally spurred by yesterday's Fed rate cut.

The Dow is trading up nearly than 200 points, or more than 2 percent.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are both up more than 2 percent, as well.

The markets are being buoyed by record third-quarter profits reported this morning by ExxonMobil, the world's biggest company.

The markets do not appear stunted by this morning's report that U.S. gross domestic product is down .3 percent in the third quarter -- the worst performance in seven years. But Wall Street seems to be saying: Hey, it coulda been worse.

Edward Lazear, President Bush's top economic adviser speaking on CNBC moments ago, pointed out this interesting fact about the GDP number: If you take out the effects of the Hurricane Ike and the Boeing machinist's strike, GDP for the third quarter -- even despite the sweeping financial crisis -- would actually have been positive.

GE rebounded in early trading this morning after a headline-taken-out-of-context episode ruined the conglomerate's share price in the last 15 minutes yesterday, which we chronicled here.

-- Frank Ahrens