What Tech Is Doing
Technology shares are rallying for a fifth consecutive day as the broad market
rises on news suggesting the economy may be headed for recovery.
The Nasdaq is trading at
breakeven levels, the Dow is up
108 at 10,611, and the S&P 500 is up 12.33 at 1236.65.
Blue chips are shaking off an earnings warning from
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
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PowerRating). The maker of Post-Its said
earnings would suffer as a result of poor results in Asia. But institutions were
heavy buyers of the conglomerate at the 200-day moving average, reflecting an
interest to potentially propel this stock to new year-to-date highs. MMM has
rallied back more than 5 points from the low of the session and is up 2.24 at
116.34.
The National Association of Purchasing Management’s
manufacturing report came in at its highest level of the year — 44.7 — showing
an improvement in the industrial economy. Cyclical stocks such as Alcoa
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and Caterpillar
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respectively.
Financial stocks are also doing well following the
Federal Reserve’s sixth interest rate cut of the year last Wednesday that took
the 30-day rate down to 3.75%. Financial institutions generally do better in
declining interest rate environments as more entities are able to afford loans.
The financial components of the Dow – American Express
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PowerRating), Citigroup
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C |
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JP Morgan
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Both the Dow and Nasdaq are also benefiting from a strong
day in Intel
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PowerRating). Intel announced the introduction of its new Pentium 4
chips running at 1.6 gigahertz and 1.8 gigahertz, or billions of cycles per
second. These chips are designed to run the world’s fastest desktop personal
computers. Intel is up 4%.
On TradersWire Interactive, Seibel Systems
(
SEBL |
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PowerRating),
one of the best performing stocks on the Nasdaq 100
(
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PowerRating), was pointed out
before it rallied out of an intraday pullback for gains of more than a
point.