Wall Street: Stocks and gold bounce

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Gold: Trading now at $1,622 an ounce, up 0.3% from Wednesday. Dow Jones industrial average: Trading now at 11,178.20, up 1.5% from Wednesday.

Good morning. Investors are feeling hopeful this morning after a vote in Germany and new data in the U.S. on unemployment and economic growth.

HP turns to Goldman. To deal with potentially hostile activist investors, Hewlett-Packard has hired a company that has experience with hostile activist investors, Goldman Sachs.

Disappointed by banks. Investor Stephen Ross collected money to invest in banks, but his analysis of banks has disappointed him so much that he has given the money back.

Lewis on California. After providing probing analysis of what is wrong with the economies of Iceland and Greece, Michael Lewis now turns his attention to California.

A picture of protesters. Can’t make it to the Wall Street protests yourself -- here is a photo gallery of 50 of the protesters camped in lower Manhattan.

-- Nathaniel Popper in New York
Twitter.com/nathanielpopper

/ Getty Images