Tech stocks posted strong gains Tuesday on positive earnings outlooks from Comverse Technology and Xilinx.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ surged 10 to 268, and the Nasdaq soared 77 to 2233. The S&P 500 climbed 16 to 1283, and the Dow rose 114 to 11,175. Volume surged to 1.31 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.82 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 19 to 10 on the NYSE, and 24 to 13 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.
Comverse soared 9.02 to 67.68 after beating estimates by a penny with 43-cent earnings, and Xilinx
rose 4.02 to 45.61 after reaffirming estimates. Even beleaguered Lucent
got in on the act, rising .49 to 8.49 after reaffirming its quarter.
Ciena , which presents at the SuperComm conference tomorrow morning, rose 4.97 to 59.70 on bullish comments from Goldman Sachs. Cisco
, up 1.81 to 21.54, rose on comments from SuperComm that its Cerent product orders may be picking up.
RealNetworks gave back strong gains to close up .11 to 12.55 after Dow Jones reported that AOL
and Microsoft
talks may resume.
Ulticom bolted 3.95 to 30.14 on an expanded relationship with IBM.
Check Point continued to slump on business concerns, off 1.36 to 47.93. Amazon.com
slipped .41 to 16.50 despite assertions that it expects to turn profitable in the fourth quarter.
Nokia climbed 1.65 to 30.93 on positive analyst comments.
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
A nice day today, and on rising, albeit average, volume to boot. That should take away some of the near-term risk that this low-volume rally presented, but we are still in a cycle turn window for the next day or two. 1200 on the S&P 500 and 2000 on the Nasdaq remain our lines in the sand; above those levels, the market looks okay, and below those levels, a retest of the lows becomes likely. The Dow (first chart) is now clearly above both 11,000 resistance and its main downtrend line, but needs to take out 11,400. Critical support on the index 11,000 and then 10,750, a trendline off the March lows. The S&P 500 (second chart) cleared the important 1265 level, the neckline of a potential inverted head-and-shoulders bottom, and its September downtrend line, both good signs. The 1265-1275 level should now be support. The Nasdaq (third chart) is just below critical 2252 resistance, and could be forming a rising wedge (fourth chart). That rising wedge is something to keep an eye on, since we now have a firm lower trendline on the index for the first time. The semiconductor stocks were strong today, a good sign for further short-term follow-through to the upside.
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