Stocks soared Friday despite news that the U.S. economy shed nearly 600,000 jobs last month, as traders viewed the report as all but assuring that Congress will pass a massive economic stimulus package.
Also boosting stocks was anticipation of the Obama Administration’s new bank rescue plan expected to be announced on Monday.
The Nasdaq gained 3% on the day and nearly 8% on the week, as traders bought in anticipation of the twin financial rescue plans, and many individual names did even better.
Tech stocks with gains of 4% or more on Friday included IBM (NYSE: IBM), HP (NYSE: HPQ), VMware (NYSE: VMW), Taiwan Semi (NYSE: TSM), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM), SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK), Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM), Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) and Sun (NASDAQ: JAVA).
The gains erased the Nasdaq’s loss for the year and put it up a little less than 1% for 2009. The index lost 40% last year.
Corning (NYSE: GLW) jumped 7% after it said it sees LCD demand improving, a surprise boost for the tech sector.
Skyworks (NASDAQ: SWKS), Synchronoss (NASDAQ: SNCR) and Infineon (NYSE: IFX) gained on their quarterly results.
The Nasdaq surged 45 to 1591, the S&P 500 gained 22 to 868, and the Dow rose 217 to 8280. Volume declined to 7.37 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.45 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by a 31-7 margin on the NYSE, and 19-8 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 92% on the NYSE, and 82% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 15-70 on the NYSE, and 6-70 on the Nasdaq.
