Record Gains On Record Volume

Stocks soared to record gains on record volume Wednesday after the Federal Reserve surprised traders with a rare intermeeting 50-basis point rate cut.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ soared 69 to 381, a 22% gain, and the Nasdaq surged 324 to 2616, a record 14% gain. The S&P 500 soared 64 to 1347, and the Dow rose 299 to 10,945. Volume soared to 1.87 billion shares on the NYSE and 3.01 billion on the Nasdaq, both records. Advancers led by 22 to 7 on the NYSE, and 30 to 9 on the Nasdaq. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar at http://www.wsrn.com/apps/earnings/internet.xpl and reported earnings at http://www.wsrn.com/apps/earnings/ireported.xpl. For after hours quotes and news, visit our after hours trading site at http://www.afterhourstrading.com.

After the bell, Inktomi issued an earnings warning and fell 3 3/4 off its high to 16 1/4, but still up 1 3/4 on the day.

B2B stocks had been weak on negative comments about i2 by CS First Boston. i2 traded as low as 34 11/16 before the Fed news hit, then soared 5 1/16 to 48 1/4. Ariba rose 5 49/64 to 47 7/8, 10 points off its low, and Commerce One rose 4 to 23 3/16 after trading as low as 16 5/8.

Broadcom soared 30 5/16 to 106 7/16, 34 points off its low. Checkpoint surged 31 1/2 to 142.

Juniper soared 27 15/16 to 130 1/2 on news that it had stolen top router expert Yakov Rekhter from Cisco . Cisco bolted 8 5/16 to 41 5/8, 9 points off its low, after the rate cut.

eToys slipped 1/32 to 3/16 after announcing that it will cease European operations.

Support.com slipped 9/16 to 13 1/2 despite announcing a contract with IBM .

Tumbleweed Software plummeted 7 to 3 on an earnings warning.

Global Sports slipped 1/8 to 5 9/16 despite pre-announcing better than expected results.

Efficient Networks dropped 2 13/16 to 9 1/2 on an earnings warning. FairMarket slipped 1/8 to 1 9/16 on an earnings warning.

Priceline.com rose 11/32 to 1 3/4 after the company and W.R. Berkley announced that they will not go through with plans to sell auto insurance over the Internet.

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

Don't Fight the Fed is one of the oldest sayings on Wall Street, and one of the truest. Hopefully you didn't fight them on the way down; don't fight them on the way back up. Interestingly, the surprise rate cut announcement from the Fed came shortly after the S&P 500 filled the last remaining gap at 1275, and a day after a number of very positive divergences in the Nasdaq, indicating the index could be about to reverse. This is a significant move; two rate cuts have historically led to a rise, on average, of 15% or greater in the S&P 500, and the Fed is likely to cut again on Jan. 31. The move could lead to some jitters, since the Fed obviously believes the economy is slowing significantly, but the trend should now be up. The rate cut also single-handedly sent the indexes into positive territory on the year; a good sign, given the correlation between the first five trading days of the year and the rest of the year. 2001 could be a very good year indeed for investors.

A number of very big positives on the day. Th