Technology and Internet shares surged on Monday, as traders awaited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a Florida Supreme Court decision that ordered recounts of all disputed presidential ballots in the state.
The ISDEX climbed 18 to 513, and the Nasdaq gained 97 to 3014. The S&P 500 rose 10 to 1380, and the Dow climbed 12 to 10,725. Volume slipped to 1.21 billion shares on the NYSE, but rose to 2.42 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by 16 to 11 on the NYSE and 23 to 16 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.
Several stocks benefited from their addition to the Nasdaq 100, among them CheckPoint Software , which slipped 2 7/8 to 156 after trading as high as 169 1/4, Exodus Communications
, up 3 5/8 to 34 1/4, Mercury Interactive
, up 7 5/8 to 107, Inktomi
, up 7 1/4 to 49 1/4, and TMP Worldwide
, up 4 1/2 to 69.
DoubleClick rose in after hours trading to 12 after warning that it will lose 3 cents in the quarter, a nickel below estimates. The stock traded down 1/2 to 11 1/2 during the day.
Yahoo , down 1 1/16 to 33 7/8, continued to be hit by downgrades from analysts concerned about the company’s vulnerability to Internet advertising weakness. Wit SoundView and Robertson Stephens were the latest to downgrade Yahoo, which is 86% off its all-time high of 250. Only Lehman Brothers analyst Holly Becker made a timely call on the stock, downgrading it at about 130 in August.
Broadcom gained 15 9/16 to 143 3/4 after unveiling its Gigabit Ethernet Media Access Controller chip and announcing a partnership with 3Com
.
Vitesse Semiconductor rose 4 to 65 1/8 ahead of its addition to the S&P 500 after the close today.
Interwoven added 5 15/16 to 91 1/8 on an alliance with IBM
.
Merrill Lynch downgraded InfoSpace , off 2 5/16 to 11 3/8, and Openwave
, down 5 37/64 to 66 5/8, saying the stocks may not have as much earnings upside as investors expect.
Intraware fell 1 9/32 to 2 15/32 on a revenue warning.
Ariba rose 4 5/16 to 86 13/16, breaking through critical 83 1/2 resistance.
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The Nasdaq 100 broke out of its inverted head-and-shoulders bottom by more than 2% today, giving the index minimum upside potential to 3350. It is a significant reversal pattern, much stronger than the index’s bottom in May. A retracement to the neckline at 2850-2900 is a possibility before a further advance. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index continued its strong advance after negating its breakdown on Friday.
The ISDEX also broke out of its inverted head-and-shoulders pattern, with minimum upside potential to 620.
The S&P 500 may be breaking out of an ascending triangle, with upside potential all the way to 1450.
The Dow is the least impressive of the major indexes, but is so far holding the 10,600-10,650 range, a source of much support and res
istance lately. The index may be forming a small symmetrical triangle, with upside potential to 11,000. If the Dow continues to lag, we would not look on that positively, since the sector rotation that has dominated the market for more than a year has yet to end well. A strong, broad-based rally would be nice to see for a change.
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