Friendlier Fed Boosts Stocks
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan softened his stance on interest rates on Tuesday, and stocks soared in approval. With the end of the presidential election in sight, traders found plenty of reason to buy.
The ISDEX
Cisco
Investors piled back into old favorites. Checkpoint
Broadcom
Aether Systems
BreezeCOM
Advertising-driven stocks rose on mildly encouraging comments from Merrill analyst Henry Blodget, who said the stocks should perform well if growth estimates for 2001 are even half-right. Yahoo
B2B stocks were back in favor. Ariba
Excite@Home
Some technical comments on the market: Note: We are now including charts in the technical market commentary. If you can't get the charts via the e-mail newsletter version, try this link: http://www.afterhourstrading.com/column.html
A lot of broken downtrends today, but a lot of opening gaps that may need to be filled at some point too. We mentioned yesterday that the Nasdaq and ISDEX retested their recent lows on lower volume, and made higher lows, all positives, and we also said that if the Nasdaq could take out 2755 and the ISDEX 434, we would break the cycle of lower lows and lower highs. So we got our wish list. Now it's time to watch the quality of the current rally to see if it will last. Up volume is leading down volume by about 9 to 1 on the Nasdaq today, a strong sign. Also, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is threatening to negate its recent breakdown at 600; a close above 614 would just about do it. The Nasdaq 100 broke above its old falling wedge boundary at the open today.
soared 45 to 451, and the Nasdaq surged 187 to 2802. The S&P 500 gained 37 to 1362, and the Dow rose 259 to 10,818. Volume surged to 643 million shares on the NYSE and 1.14 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by 19 to 7 on the NYSE and by 26 to 10 on the Nasdaq. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar and reported earnings. For after hours quotes and news, visit our after hours trading site.
recovered 3 7/8 to 49 11/16 on the final day of a two-day analyst meeting during which the company reaffirmed growth estimates.
soared 18 3/16 to 127 7/8, Interwoven
surged 15 3/4 to 69 9/16, and Juniper
bolted 19 1/4 to 148 3/4.
gained 3 3/8 to 115 1/8 despite a warning from 3Com
, which represents 14% of Broadcom's business. Prudential downgraded Broadcom on the news.
rose 7 7/8 to 62 1/4 on positive comments from Merrill Lynch, which expects the company to beat estimates.
rose 1 1/16 to 15 on a Salomon Smith Barney Buy rating and $21 price target.
rose 2 15/16 to 40 7/8, and America Online
climbed 2.95 to 44. DoubleClick
, up 5/8 to 12 5/8, announced layoffs.
soared 11 1/4 to 72 11/16, Commerce One
surged 6 21/32 to 34 17/32, i2
climbed 16 7/16 to 104 7/16, and PurchasePro
added 2 1/2 to 17 7/8.
slipped 1/4 to 5 5/8 after Banc of America lowered its price target from $57 to $20.