Day Traders Diary

10/24/11

U.S. stocks opened higher on Monday on cautious optimism over signs of progress toward a debt deal in Europe and strong results from Caterpillar. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 35 points to 11,846. Caterpillar is jumping 4%. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 4 points to 1,242. The Nasdaq Composite advanced 15 points to 2,652. Many were expecting a pull back this morning, but thanks to a couple mergers, plenty of upgrades, and solid earnings, the averages are pushing higher. HealthSpring is jumping 33% after Cigna agreed to buy out the firm. The whole healthcare space is acting well. Rightnow Tech is jumping 20% after Oracle agreed to acquire the firm. The techs look good. Xilinx is jumping 3% on an upgrade. The chips are acting well. Intel is butting up against its' 52 week high. Agilent is up 3% on an upgrade. The commodities are acting great once again. Freeport is jumping 6% on a positive article in Barrons. Noble Energy and Molycorp are higher on upgrades. Potlatch is higher following earnings. The financials keep creeping higher. FBR made positive comments on Wells Fargo and PNC. Keycorp, Duke Realty, BB&T, and LPL Investment are all higher on upgrades. Through the first hour the averages pushed higher. The Dow rose 70 points while the Nasdaq improved by 33 points. We're starting to break out of the upper part of the range. In the retail space, VF Corp is up 5% after beating estimates and raising their dividend. Ralph Lauren Polo, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Limited all made new highs this morning. Petsmart and Amazon are higher on upgrades. Very few stocks are trading lower. IBM, P&G, and Exxon Mobil are trading lower within the Dow. Kimberly Clark is down 4% following disappointing earnings. Through the morning the averages moved sideways only to rally into the lunch hour. The bulls are back. Through the afternoon the averages moved sideways losing a little bit of momentum in the last hour. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished up104 points at 11,913. The S&P 500 rose 15 points, or 1.3%, to 1,254, led by natural-resource stocks and financials. The Nasdaq Composite gained 61 points, or 2.4%, to 2,699.

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