The stock market indices had another good day today, and a good follow-through to yesterday's late pullback. The day started out strong, with a run up sharply at the opening, and then pulled back into consolidation patterns, but when they held support at 1247 S&P 500 and 2255 on the Nasdaq 100, they then turned around and rallied sharply to new highs for the day, reaching the session highs around midday, just under 2269 on the NDX, and about 1255 SPX. They backed off early afternoon, tested support successfully, and then came on again and tested the highs, however, were not able to get through, and backed off again.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 61.84 at 12,169.58, or about 13 points off the highs. The S&P 500 up 10.29 to 1254.01, only a point off the high, and the Nasdaq 100 up 17.74 at 2266.77, or less than a point off the high.
Advance-declines were 3 to 1 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and 2 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 4 to 1 positive on New York, with total volume of 750 million shares traded today. Nasdaq traded 2.2 billion shares and had a 3 1/2 to 1 positive volume ratio.
It was a very solid session on lower volume pre-holiday.
TheTechTrader.com board was very active, with quite a few gainers on the board today that we traded. Leading the way on good news, RAM Energy Resources, Inc. (RAM) was up 91 cents to 2.01, or 83.6% , on 12 million shares, up from its average of 146,000. That was a 12,000% gain on volume. Incredible.
SandRidge Energy, Inc. (SD) jumped 1.54 to 8.21, or 23% on news of a major project, Powerwave Technologies Inc. (PWAV) 25 cents to 2.06, or 14%; Transcept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (TSPT) 86 cents to 8.06, or 12%; Amedisys Inc. (AMED) 1.02 to 11.56, or 10%; Diamond Foods, Inc. (DMND) 2.76 to 29.88, Akamai Technologies Inc. (AKAM) up 4.96 to 31.63, or 18.6%;
In addition, LRR Energy, L.P. (LRE) was up 1.65 to 19.39, Genco Shipping & Trading Ltd. (GNK) up 56 cents to 7.00 even, low-priced Netlist Inc. (NLST) 21 cents to 2.62, Tibco Software, Inc.