Stocks soared Thursday on better than expected earnings news from Microsoft and Yahoo.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ soared 17 to 222, and the Nasdaq surged 103 to 2075. The S&P 500 rose 27 to 1208, and the Dow soared 237 to 10,478. Volume rose to 1.39 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.87 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 19 to 11 on the NYSE, and 25 to 12 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 close, Juniper Networks rose after beating estimates by a penny with 9-cent earnings and hitting the low end of revenue estimates. Advanced Micro Devices
rose after topping estimates by a penny with 5-cent earnings but lowering forward estimates. RSA Security
plunged after missing estimates and lowering forward guidance. Rambus
slipped on an earnings warning.
During the day, Microsoft soared 5.20 to 71.70 after pre-announcing better than expected revenues and in-line earnings, but also announced a $3.9 billion charge for bad investments.
Yahoo surged 1.28 to 18.31 after beating estimates by a penny and reaffirming full-year views. Sonus Networks
rose 3.42 to 22.35 on better than expected earnings and a contract with BellSouth
. Motorola
surged 2.48 to 18.15 after topping estimates.
Qualcomm rose 6.56 to 63.01 on positive comments from Goldman Sachs.
Some technical comments on the market: Note: We include 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 good looking rally today, a big surprise after all the technical negatives recently, but we aren’t out of the woods yet. Internals were solid but not wildly bullish. Key indicators like MACD and PPO have yet to turn up. Sentiment went from bearish to bullish in a heartbeat, a contrary indicator. And the Dow (first chart) was the only index to definitively clear resistance today, getting back above 10,450. The S&P 100 and the Nasdaq 100 (second and third charts) couldn’t clear the critical levels of 623 and 1770, respectively. The S&P 500 (fourth chart) took out 1207 resistance, but barely. The Nasdaq (fifth chart) took out resistance at 2000, 2028 and 2050-2060, but ran into gap resistance at 2075. One big plus is that the index managed to build on its huge opening gap, creating a nice white candlestick on a very big up day.
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