To say the least it was the mother of all rallies today. The market exploded out of the gate with very strong pre-market futures. We did have an orderly pullback in the first half hour, but then they surged higher all morning. At mid-day they had a pullback that reached initial support, and held, and from that point they exploded straight north, accelerating especially strong into the close. bringing the indices sharply higher to all-time record highs for one-day advances, with the Dow up 936 plus, the S&P 500 up 104-plus, and the Nasdaq 100 up nearly 160. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up almost 24, which is about a 10-percent advance.
The technicals more than confirmed the day today with a monster advance of 3031 issues up and only 161 down today on New York, and I'll bet most of those down were ultrashort instruments. Nasdaq had a ratio of 2568 to 429, about 6 to 1, on advance-declines. Up/down volume was 1.72 billion up and only 91 million down on New York, nearly 30 to 1 on Nasdaq, with 2.58 billion shares up and 88 million down.
The intraday tick got as high as +1294, as high as we've seen in a long time, and closed at +1061 on New York.
To say the least, TheTechTrader.com board was probably the best it has ever looked in one day. Leading the way was Apple (AAPL), now up 25 points off Friday's low, closing at 110.26, up 13.46 on 55 million shares. Portfolio position Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) had a stellar day up 8.82 to 44.82 on 3.2 million. Morgan Stanley (MS) had a phenomenal day, after reaching as low as 6.75 on Friday and as high today as 19.06, closing at 18.10, up 8.42 today on 200 million shares.
Portfolio position A-Power Energy (APWR) was the percentage gain leader on Nasdaq, up 2.81 to near 7, or more than 67 percent.
Other multiple point gainers included DryShips (DRYS) up 4.64, Excel Maritime (EXM) up 3.91 in a very strong shipping sector, Focus Media (FMCN) at 22.98 up 4, portfolio position Mosaic (MOS) at 44.21 up 7.81, portfolio position Sequenom (SQNM) at 19.45 up 3.36, portfolio position Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX) at 28.89 up 3.45, recent Chart of the Week Perrigo (PRGO) at 34.50 up 3.17, Canadian Solar (CSIQ) at 14.76 up 2.07, Clean Energy (CLNE) at 11.98 up 3.24, Citigroup (C) at 15.75 up 1.64, the Q's up 3.81, and the EWZ Brazilian ETF, another portfolio position, with a monster close at 43.25 up 8.81 on 31 million shares.
Many more stocks on our board had point-plus days, such as Aluminum Corp. of China (ACH) up 1.56, Continental (CAL) up 1.48,former portfolio position Greatbatch (GB) up 1.59, JA Solar (JASO) up 1.23 to 7.66, and Solarfun (SOLF) up 1.37 to 7.50.
Sigma Designs (SIGM) jumped 1.21 to 13.10, BIDU was up 52.30 and GOOG up 49.02.
On the downside, the ultrashort instruments got destroyed today, with the DUG down 27.20 to 47.20 on 14 million shares. The QID was down 18.80 to 63, and the SDS down 24.88 to 86.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices exploded up through the declining tops lines and moving average and just kept going, closing at the highs for the day on the biggest one rally in stock market history. Is the bottom in? Very likely. There'll be some retesting over the next day or two, but I'd view that as a buying opportunity.
