Stocks Party On

Stocks surged again on Monday on an oil industry merger and continued success in the war in Afghanistan.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ surged 8 to 186, and the Nasdaq rose 35 to 1934. The S&P 500 climbed 12 to 1151, and the Dow rose 109 to 9976. Volume declined to 1.29 billion shares on the NYSE, but rose to 1.9 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 19 to 11 on the NYSE, and 22 to 14 on the Nasdaq.

Chip equipment stocks were weak on negative comments from Goldman Sachs, ahead of the industry’s book-to-bill ratio tomorrow night. Applied Materials , KLA-Tencor , and Novellus all ended.

Bomb detection firm InVision soared 3.59 to 18.42 on passage of the airline security bill.

Cisco rose despite a neutral rating from Buckingham Research after the firm’s $20 price target was hit.

PeopleSoft surged 11% on bullish comments from management.

NVIDIA lost 1.15 to 51.34 on news of an SEC investigation into insider trading at the company.

Handspring soared 35% on speculation of a merger with Palm .

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 (first chart) took out 9906 resistance convincingly today, and should be headed for critical resistance at 10,093-10,120 next. 10,000 is a psychological level only, but it could provide some resistance. First support is 9906, then 9850 and 9750. The Nasdaq (second chart) closed right under critical resistance at 1934.69; it just cleared that level before turning back, which raises the possibility that this rally could get to at least the 2080 level. However, a pullback to about 1800 would be ideal first. First resistance is 1940, then 1950 and 1968. Support is 1922, 1880-1900, and then 1840-1875. The S&P 500 (third chart) could be headed for the critical 1164-1173 level. First support is 1146-1148, and then 1135-1140. At 0.53, the put-call ratio is just above levels where tops have occurred in this bear market, and it may take a pullback soon to get some doubt back into the market. Another gap up tomorrow might create enough complacency to put in a short-term top. At this point, however, the bigger trend is likely to be up until at least December 2-5, and potentially into mid-December.

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.

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