This Is A Positive Sign
Anthrax in the mail, American troops in Afghanistan,
and some of the worst earnings in recent memory, and the market is still
holding on. That the market bleeds so little, and even rallies — despite the
negative news — is a constructive sign.
The Dow is up 86 at 9291, the Nasdaq is up 17.78 at
1689.09, and the S&P 500 is up 7.39 at 1080.85.
TradingMarkets CEO Larry Connors spelled out the
situation in this week’s Battle
Plan. As Larry pointed out in his commentary, “Last year, this type of accumulated negative news would have
knocked 5%-10% off the averages. This week it was merely a blip on the screen.”
As the second week of the quarterly earnings season
gets underway, 3M
(
MMM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) came in on the low end of forecasted earnings
and is being rewarded with a 3.83 gain to 106.00.
Semiconductor stocks are among the session’s
strongest, with the
(
$SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) index up 3.94%.
Xilinx
(
XLNX |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating), up 5.05%, Novellus
(
NVLS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating),
up1.93 to 32.39, and Linear Technologies
(
LLTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) up1.68 to 38.70, are
among the leaders from the SOX.
Oil services
(
$OSX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) are also faring well, with
Halliburton
(
HAL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) up .59 to 54.59 and Transocean
(
RIG |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) up 1.04 to
29.74. Oil and oil products prices have declined as much as 30% in the past
30 days and a rally in energy prices today is helping give oil services
stocks a lift