Yahoo, Aetna Send Stocks Soaring

Better than expected results from Yahoo and Aetna and the first improvement in jobless claims in two months sent stocks soaring on Thursday.

The Nasdaq soared 49 to 1163, the S&P 500 gained 27 to 803, and the Dow surged 247 to 7533. Volume rose to 2.05 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.84 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 20 to 12 on the NYSE, and 20 to 13 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 80.7% on the NYSE, and 86.6% on the Nasdaq.

After the close, Juniper matched estimates, and Echeclon and Powerwave beat estimates.

During the day, Yahoo soared 23% after beating estimates and raising guidance.

Network Associates soared 25% after beating estimates.

Overture gained 13% after Goldman Sachs raised estimates.

Ticketmaster soared 26% on news that it will be acquired by USA Interactive , which also said it was dropping plans to acquire the rest of Hotels.com and Expedia , both of which rallied 10-12% anyway.

Big cap leaders Microsoft , Intel , IBM , Cisco and Oracle each gained 5%.

Redback , was unchanged on its earnings report, Rambus gained 5% on its report, and Sonus lost 11%.

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.

Nice rally today, with much improved internals over the October 1 one-day wonder. The fourth consecutive -1100+ TICK on the NYSE this morning was a sign that selling was getting a little extreme, so today’s bounce wasn’t surprising. Again, we are hoping for 90% downside days and an equity put-call ratio over 1.0 coupled with a peak in the VIX to mark a major bottom, but we wouldn’t rule out an intermediate term bottom before we get those major bottom signals. One sign that this rally might have legs would be a breakout of the downtrend channels formed off the September 11 high. For tomorrow, those levels are 7630-7680 on the Dow (first chart below), 820-825 on the S&P 500 (second chart), 1170 on the Nasdaq (third chart), and we’ll use 865 on the Nasdaq 100 (fourth chart), which broke its September 11 downtrend line today. GE’s earnings report in the morning could have much to say about whether those down channels are broken, and retail sales and Michigan sentiment are also important numbers tomorrow. Important supports are 7460 on the Dow, 796 on the S&P, 1148 on the Nasdaq, and 840 on the Nasdaq 100.

/

/

/

/

Don’t miss the Company of the Week – every week – at http://www.wsrn.com/COW/.

Special report: For a free introduction to technical analysis and chart patterns, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.