Bulls Cross-Examine Bears
Despite some sour comments from Cisco and AT&T, stocks were againÂ
able to rally on bad news Monday, as traders ready themselves for the Fed’s
all-but-certain 50-basis point rate cut on Wednesday. The Nasdaq turned in an
impressive 2% gain while the Dow and S&P 500 rose 0.4% and 0.6%,
respectively.
Nasdaq and NYSE volume trailed off by about 10% from Friday’s levels, but the
lightening volume was not that much of a surprise as market participants
continue to stay in a wait-and-see mode ahead of the Fed. Nasdaq volume was 1.95
billion shares, and NYSE volume was 1.02 billion shares.
‘The
bright spot in this market, of course, is the renewed enthusiasm the Fed has
expressed toward stimulating the economy. Greenspan
told the Senate Budget Committee he believes U.S. growth to be near zero and
that he now believes the government has room to both cut taxes and continue
paying down the federal debt,” said Paul Rabbitt, President,
RabbittAnalytics.com.
“Federal
funds futures have signaled 90% odds the Fed will cut rates by 1/2 percentage
Wednesday. Moreover, a survey of
all 25 primary bond dealers revealed they also expect the Fed to cut by a 1/2
percentage,” he added.
According
to preliminary numbers, the Nasdaq rose 56.73 to 2838.03, the Dow rose 44.68 to
10,704.66, and the S&P 500 added 8.67 to 1363.62.
Top
sectors were telecom
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(
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3.9%, Internets
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3.3%.
Under
pressure were oil services
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down 2.2%.
Big cap
tech winners gaining more than 7% included Dell
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Qualcomm
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3/8 to 33 9/16.
Strong
in the Internet group was Check Point
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7/16.
In yet
another clear sign of some sort of bottom, Disney
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$790 million loss as it calls it quits on the Disney Internet Group
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which ran the Go.com Website. For the day, Disney closed up 1.01 to 30.82.
Joining
Disney in the Dow top-performers group were Hewlett Packard
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Intel
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Hats
off to E*Trade
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monkey that thoroughly summed up the past year’s dot.com collapse. Very
funny spot, and it looks like it also gave E*Trade a boost, as the stock rose 1
1/4 to 14 7/8, its highest level since early November.
Looking
ahead, the January consumer confidence numbers are due out on Tuesday at 10:00
AM ET. Analysts expect a reading of 125.4.