U.S. STOCKS: Dow and Nasdaq ended with robust gains following the surprise Fed rate cut Wednesday, easily reversing the sharp sell-off seen on the first trading day of the year. Dow ended up by 299.60 points or 2.8% while the Nasdaq was up 324.88 or 14.2% its largest ever gain in percentage terms and the heaviest ever volume day. Plenty of winners to be found, needless to say but worth noting Big Blue, IBM, gained almost $10 to $94 1/2 while Microsoft added $4 1/2 to $almost $48. Financials did well also, with MSDW gaining $11 1/8 to $83 while JP Morgan Chase gained $7 1/4 to $50 7/8. On the Nasdaq, Oracle, Sun-Micro, Intel all posted solid gains while Cisco added a whopping $8 to end at $41 5/16 after being beaten down Tuesday. S&P 500 ended up 64 points.