Qualcomm, GM Boost Stocks

Positive earnings outlooks from Qualcomm and GM sent stocks surging on Monday.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 4 to 147, and the Nasdaq surged 45 to 1769. The S&P 500 rose 19 to 1109, and the Dow soared 177 to 10,145. Volume declined to 1.3 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.7 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 19 to 11 on the NYSE, and 19 to 16 on the Nasdaq.

After the close, Flextronics warned and Macrovision topped estimates but guided lower.

During the day, Qualcomm surged almost 10% after the company said it would meet estimates after the close. Guidance after hours was in line with expectations, and the stock rose another 1% after hours.

Sun Microsystems , Citrix and EMC surged 8%-10% on positive analyst comments, but Emulex gained a muted 4% on equally bullish comments.

IBM continued to struggle and ended down fractionally on the day.

Some technical comments on the market: Note: To see the charts in the text email newsletter, click on the internetstockreport.com story link at the top of the newsletter.

If you ignore the declining volume and unimpressive breadth on the Nasdaq, today looked impressive from a purely chart standpoint. The Dow (first chart) broke out of a couple of rising resistance lines; very impressive if the index can hold those breakouts. The first of those lines is just under 10,140, right under today’s close, which makes today’s breakout a good risk-reward point for longs; that 10,135 level is now very important support. A move below that and then 10,080 would constitute a bearish breakout failure. The next couple of days are critical for the market; if it can build on the gains of the last two days, the trend may be up at least until early March. The cyclicals (second chart) made a new high today and have provided real market leadership, but watch resistance around 565 over the next day or two. The S&P 500 and 100 (third and fourth charts) are right under critical resistance areas, at 1112-1119 and 564-568. Support is 1098-1103 and 559-560. The Nasdaq (fifth chart) finished right under the critical 1772-1780 resistance area; if the index can clear 1805, it would start to look pretty good. First support is 1724-1731.

Special report: For a free introduction to technical chart patterns, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.