October Spooky to Wall Street So Far

It was another down day on Wall Street Wednesday, with the Dow giving up 129 points. The Nasdaq Composite lost 13 points and the S&P 500 fell by 9.

But futures are indicating a higher open Thursday, despite the downgrade of Spain's sovereign debt rating to just above junk status at Standard and Poor's.

Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) is certainly a bright spot. Shares of the world's largest retailer hit their highest level in history yesterday.

Wal-Mart's holiday layaway program is going gangbusters, logging $400 million in sales so far. Now the chain is sampling same-day delivery in at least four markets with the hopes that online shoppers will pay some $10 for the luxury of immediate shipping.

Meanwhile,.40% of U.S. teenagers own an iPhone. A new survey of 7,700 teens by Piper Jaffray finds the number has risen fast: last Spring, just 17% of teens said they owned an iPhone; and 62% of teens that do not currently own an iPhone say their next phone will be an iPhone.

A warning to folks who like Mini-Wheats for breakfast. Retailers have been contacted about the recall of 2.8 million packages of Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats Bite-Size Original and Mini-Wheats Unfrosted Bite Size. They're being pulled from store shelves for possible fragments of flexible metal mesh from a faulty manufacturing part.

It's a voluntary recall and no injuries have been reported so far. But consumers should check their cereal box for the letters KB, AP, or FK before or after the best-before date.

Kellogg (NYSE:K) has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to fix its factories' supply chain issues.