Stocks ended the week Friday with strong gains on rising volume.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ climbed 2 to 113, and the Nasdaq climbed 37 to 1498. The S&P 500 rose 22 to 1040, and the Dow surged 166 to 8847. Volume rose to 1.65 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.06 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 24 to 6 on the NYSE, and 25 to 11 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.
Stocks rose on better-than-expected readings in the Michigan consumer sentiment survey and the Chicago Purchasing Management Index, even though the Michigan numbers apparently showed a significant decline in consumer sentiment after September 11.
Microsoft rose .24 to 50.20 after a judge ordered the company into settlement talks with the government.
McLeod soared .47 to .78 after saying it has no plans to file for bankruptcy.
Exodus was replaced in the Nasdaq 100 by biotech firm Gilead
after filing for bankruptcy. A bizarre misquote in Exodus at $100 a share caused a brief spike up in the Nasdaq around 10 a.m., as some computer buy programs kicked in on the erroneous trade.
Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker made a return, recommending VeriSign , AOL
, Intuit
, eBay
and FreeMarkets
.
EMC lost .39 to 11.50 after SoundView said the company’s business has ground to a halt in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
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
The Dow and S&P 500 are getting short-term overbought here, and if they continue up for the next day or two, the odds are high that a cycle turn the middle of next week will be down. On the daily charts, the Dow and S&P (first two charts) appear to be forming some sort of bearish rising wedge, which also suggests that the turn could be down. A very strong up day on Monday, to about 9000 on the Dow, could potentially negate those patterns. Support on Monday is likely to be at about 8600 on the Dow. The S&P should have support at 1025, and resistance at 1050. One positive today is that the market staged a follow-through rally – climbing more than 1% on rising volume – but that indicator hasn’t worked all that well during this bear market. The Dow (third chart) pushed back into its old trading range, a positive. The Nasdaq (fourth chart) doesn’t have much structure at all and is comparatively much weaker than the Dow and S&P. Ignore that brief spike up to broken support today (the arrow), which was due to erroneous computerized trades. Resistance on the Nasdaq is 1500, and support is 1467.
Special report: For a free introduction to technical chart patterns and an overview of last year’s action in the stock market, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.
