An apparent asset allocation from bonds into stocks sent the stock market soaring on Wednesday, recovering all of Tuesday’s losses and then some.
Wednesday was also the deadline for about 700 companies to certify their results with the SEC. About 40 had failed to do so by the deadline, but they could seek a 5-day extension.
The Nasdaq soared 65 to 1334, the S&P 500 gained 35 to 919, and the Dow surged 260 to 8743. Volume rose to 1.51 billion shares on the NYSE, but declined to 1.62 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 23 to 8 on the NYSE, and 22 to 11 on the Nasdaq.
After the close, AOL said it may have improperly recognized $49 million in revenue, but said it would certify its results. Intuit
beat estimates and announced an acquisition, Brocade
beat revenue estimates, Creative Tech
beat estimates, and BEA
matched estimates.
During the day, Oracle and Intel
posted 10% gains.
Network Appliance surged 27% on better than expected results, boosting the beleaguered storage sector. QLogic
recovered its July low of 33.17.
Applied Materials reversed early losses and gained 7% despite saying that customers have turned more cautious in recent weeks.
CheckFree soared 41% on an upgrade.
IBM rose 4%. Big Blue disclosed that it is cutting 15,000 jobs.
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.
Quite a day. The Dow (first chart below) broke critical 8400-8450 support, only to rally all the way back to its May downtrend line by the close. The index has a ton of resistance between here and 8927. Also note that 8350, the middle of the bullish “three white soldiers” candlesticks, held as support today. The Nasdaq (second chart) held 1263 support, recovered yesterday’s failed breakout, and took out 1300 and 1325 resistance in the process. If it can take out 1355 – with volume, which has been sorely lacking in this tech rally – it could be headed for 1500 (duplicating the 160-point move out of the double bottom). An alternative could be a completed Elliott wave ABC bear market correction at 1368 (duplicating the first leg up), and then down to new lows. Volume is critical for the Nasdaq; it needs to pick up for the tech rally to be sustained. The S&P (third and fourth charts) had a very nice breakout today after holding its uptrend off the July lows. 900-910 must now hold as support. 923-924 and 935 are resistance, and 950 is major resistance for the entire market. Finally, Max-Pain, the point where most options expire worthless, is at 23 on the QQQ, the Nasdaq 100 tracking stock, about 4% below tonight’s level, suggesting a possible pullback in the next two days.
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