Day Traders Diary

8/15/11

U.S. stocks opened sharply higher Monday on a spate of corporate deals, including Google's plan to buy Motorola Mobility Holdings for $12.5 billion are lending support the markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 120 points to 11,390. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index advanced 13 points to 1,192. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 25 points to 2,533. Over the weekend it seems investors' fears have subsided a little bit. Motorola Mobility is jumping 56% thanks to the Google buyout offer. Rival firm, InterDigital is down 18% as many investors speculated Google was interested in buying them. On the earnings front, Sysco Foods and Lowes are lower following earnings. Estee Lauder is down 10% following earnings. Valspar is modestly higher following earnings. Plenty of upgrades this morning. In the financial space Wells Fargo, Blackrock, Visa, Zion Bancorp, and Annaly Mortgage are all higher thanks to upgrades. Bank of America is up 3% on news their selling their International credit card business. In the tech space Oracle, HP, Apple (of course), Dell, and IBM are all higher on upgrades. Within the first half an hour the Dow rose as much as 150 points while the Nasdaq jumped 30 points. The commodities are bouncing back smartly. So far so good. Through the morning the averages held their gains with very few stocks in the red from the tech sector. Cisco Systems and Google are lower, although Google is down due to their buyout offer for Motorola Mobility. Into the afternoon the averages moved side near the highs of the day. Volume and volatility continue to subside from last week's wild ride. In the last hour the averages pushed to new highs for the day erasing all the losses from last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up 213 points, or 1.9%, at 11,482, led by an 8% surge in Bank of America's stock. The S&P 500 gained 25 points, or 2.2%, to 1,204, with utilities and energy stocks leading gains for all 10 sectors. The Nasdaq Composite added 47 points, or 1.9%, to 2,555.

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