Apple, Amazon Lead Tech Stock Rally

A massive government rescue of Citigroup (NYSE: C) sent stocks soaring for a second day on Monday, while Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) led the tech sector higher ahead of the start of the holiday shopping season.

The government’s rescue of Citi — the biggest U.S. financial company, with $2 trillion in assets — sent stocks soaring on hopes that the bailout can bring an end to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Also boosting stocks was the appointment of President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team, with New York Fed President Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and Harvard economist and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers as a top advisor.

Apple and Amazon rose 12% each on hopes that the deal can boost consumer confidence in time for the critical holiday shopping season.

After the close, HP (NYSE: HPQ) fleshed out the details of its better than expected results preannounced a week ago.

HP’s results were boosted by strong notebook and blade sales and the addition of EDS, but printing, industry-standard server and business critical system sales weighed on results.

HP said it expects 2009 to be a tough year, and the company sees more savings from its merger with EDS and also plans to tighten discretionary spending.

Other stocks beating the Nasdaq’s 6.3% gain during Monday’s trading session included Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Symantec (NASDAQ: SYMC).

The Nasdaq surged 87 to 1472, the S&P gained 51 to 851, and the Dow soared 296 to 8443. Volume declined to 8.74 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.64 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 32-4 margin on the NYSE, and 22-7 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 93% on the NYSE, and 94% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 2-153 on the NYSE, and 3-265 on the Nasdaq.