Reports of strong iPad sales sent shares of memory makers surging on Monday, while the rest of the market gained on news of strong consumer spending and a financial rescue package for Greece.
The news quelled growing financial fears for a day and sent stocks to their best gains since mid-February.
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was up 2 percent on news that 1 million iPads have already been sold. That was even better news for makers of memory chips like SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) and Micron (NYSE: MU), which saw their shares soar 9 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
A Semiconductor Industry Association report that showed chip sales for March up 58.3 percent from a year ago also helped chip stocks.
3PAR (NYSE: PAR) gained 8.6 percent a day ahead of its earnings report. The gains were helped by a Barron’s article that said the company could be a takeover target for Dell (NASDAQ: DELL).
Dell will also be reporting its quarterly results later this month, as will Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), HP (NYSE: HPQ), NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP), Applied Materials (NASDAQ: AMAT) and Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD), among others.