day trading october 10/11 wk., page-2

Great 2 know your doing great Ipod, miss your posting.
Is this the catalyst for us to start going down ?.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26190610-5017999,00.html

Wall Street's Dow rallies to 2009 high

Geoffrey Rogow | October 10, 2009
Article from: Dow Jones Newswires

US stocks were higher today, led by IBM and a rallying tech sector, closing out a week to a new 2009 closing high for the Dow index.

Alcoa and others helped fuel increasing optimism surrounding third-quarter earnings reports.

On the two-year anniversary of its all-time closing high, the Dow closed today up 78.07 points, or 0.8 per cent, at 9864.94. The index tacked on 377.27 points, or 3.98 per cent, for the week, snapping a string of two weekly losses and pushing to its highest close since October 6, 2008.

At the forefront of today’s gains was IBM, up $US3.64, or 3 per cent, to $US125.93, after a Barclays analyst offered bullish comments on Big Blue. Further solidifying broad technology sector gains, Intel climbed US29 cents, or 1.5 per cent, to $US20.17, and Advanced Micro Devices rose US37c, or 6.7 per cent, to $US5.88.

All three companies will be posting earnings reports next week as the third-quarter season kicks into high gear. In the period's first heavily watched report, Alcoa surprised Wall Street with a third-quarter profit. For the week, Alcoa increased 11 per cent, although it pared some of those gains with a drop of US11c, or 0.8 per cent, to $US14.24 today.

Still, the broad sentiment surrounding third-quarter reports has so far been optimistic. Even with the Standard & Poor's 500 up nearly 60 per cent in the past seven months, broad buying remains a market staple, money managers say.

"Investors have moved from a flight to safety to a flight to risk," said Rick Lake, portfolio manager of the Aston/Lake Partners LASSO Alternatives Fund.

"The investing crowd feels compelled to participate in up moves and buy anything with a higher yield than cash, setting up a climate where investors will react to any positive news and leave a prudent consideration of economic realities to another time."

The S&P 500 tacked on 6.01 points, or 0.56 per cent, to 1071.49, closing out the week up 46.28 points, or 4.51 per cent, less than a point below its 2009 closing high. Despite the broad recent rally, the S&P remains off 32 per cent from its all-time high exactly two years ago. In the past two years, its weakest components were AIG and MBIA.

On the other end, the more things change the more they stay the same. Its five best components since marking an all-time high in 2007 -- Southwestern Energy, Tenet Healthcare, Western Digital, DeVry and QLogic -- all finished toay in the green.

Helped by the strong technology sector, the Nasdaq Composite finished today up 15.35 points, or 0.72 per cent, to 2139.28, marking a gain of 81.99 points, or 3.99 per cent, for the week.