Tattered Techs Rocket Back
Santa arrived early and gave the Nasdaq a shiny new 7.6% rally that was led
by the same tech leaders that have been decimated in the last two weeks. Joining
the Nasdaq celebration were the Dow and S&P 500, which gained 1.4% and 2.4%,
respectively.
The big question remains whether this rally can continue on Tuesday, but what
was encouraging was that many of the day’s tech screamers powered higher on
greater-than-average volume.
Overall Nasdaq volume eased about 18% from Thursday’s levels but still
registered an impressive 2.22 billion shares on a pre-holiday Friday. NYSE
volume notched a respectable 1.10 billion shares.
“Today’s market is moving higher in a positive fashion, however, the
doubting Thomases still wonder whether this is a bear-trap rally or a Santa
Claus/Bush rally. Everything on Wall Street and at shopping malls continues to
be on sale,” said Alan Ackerman, Market Strategist, Fahnstock & Co.
“Stocks are heavily marked down, retailers are marking inventory down,
and the consumer appears to be in no hurry to put money to work. On balance, as
the U.S. economy slows, there are those that would like to be buying now but are
somewhat concerned with the balance of tax loss selling which so far this year
has been wicked and oppressive,” he added.
Top sectors were Internets
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up 9.5%, biotechnology
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up 4.3%.
Nearly every sector was higher, but two that finished roughly flat were drugs
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Tech gainers of note included Sun Microsystems
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15/16 or 18% higher to 31 7/8 on double its average volume.
Also soaring on heavy volume were fallen angels like Juniper Networks
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up 29 3/16 or 31% to 123 1/8, Ciena
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up 22%, and Check Point
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Dow winners included Alcoa
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9.6%, IBM
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of the day was Disney
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Looking ahead, the index of leading economic indicators is due out next
Wednesday at 10:00 AM ET, and analysts expect a decrease of 0.2%.