Technology and Internet shares led the market higher on Monday, as traders awaited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a Florida Supreme Court decision that ordered recounts of all disputed presidential ballots in the state.
The ISDEX surged 25 to 520, and the Nasdaq gained 92 to 3010. The S&P 500 rose 12 to 1382, and the Dow climbed 27 to 10,740. Volume was unchanged at 519 million shares on the NYSE and 1 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by 14 to 12 on the NYSE and 20 to 15 on the Nasdaq. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar and reported earnings. For after hours quotes and news, visit our after hours trading site.
Several stocks benefited from their addition to the Nasdaq 100, among them CheckPoint Software , up 3 1/4 to 162 1/8, Exodus Communications
, up 2 15/16 to 34 9/16, Mercury Interactive
, Inktomi
, up 4 15/16 to 46 15/16, and TMP Worldwide
, up 3 3/8 to 67 7/8.
DoubleClick was off 5/8 to 11 3/8 after scheduling a conference call for after the close today. Traders were worried that the company will issue an earnings warning.
Yahoo , down 1 1/8 to 33 13/16, continued to be hit by downgrades from analysts concerned about the company’s vulnerability to Internet advertising weakness. Wit SoundView and Robertson Stephens were the latest to downgrade Yahoo, which is 86% off its all-time high of 250. Only Lehman Brothers analyst Holly Becker made a timely call on the stock, downgrading it at about 130 in August.
Broadcom gained 10 to 138 3/16 after unveiling its Gigabit Ethernet Media Access Controller chip and announcing a partnership with 3Com
.
Vitesse Semiconductor rose 1 3/4 to 62 7/8 ahead of its addition to the S&P 500 after the close today.
Interwoven added 8 9/16 to 93 3/4 on an alliance with IBM
.
Merrill Lynch downgraded InfoSpace , off 1 15/16 to 11 3/4, and Openwave
, down 33/64 to 71 11/16, saying the stocks may not have as much earnings upside as investors expect.
Intraware fell 1 5/16 to 2 7/16 on a revenue warning.
Ariba rose 5 to 87 1/2, breaking through critical 83 1/2 resistance.
Some technical comments on the market: Note: We are now including 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 Nasdaq 100 is clearly above the neckline of its inverted head-and-shoulders bottom. A close of 2950 or higher would break the pattern by 2% and give the Nasdaq 100 minimum upside potential to 3350. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index continues its strong advance after negating its breakdown on Friday. However, the indexes are getting overbought and are probably due for a pullback soon.
The ISDEX is also breaking out of its inverted head-and-shoulders pattern, with minimum upside potential to 620.
The S&P 500 may be breaking out of an ascending triangle, with upside potential all the way to 1450.
The Dow is the least impressive of the major indexes, but is so far holding the 10,600-10,650 range, a source of much support and resistance lately. The index may be forming a small symmetrical triangle, with u
pside potential to 11,000. If the Dow continues to lag, we would not look on that positively, since the sector rotation that has dominated the market for more than a year has yet to end well. A strong, broad-based rally would be nice to see for a change.
Special report: For a free introduction to technical chart patterns and an overview of this year’s action in the stock market, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.
