Reply #33: Closing blather - Oh happy days are here again!

[54anickel]

Close: Stocks began the day trading higher, with Yasser Arafat's death sparking renewed optimism that peace can be restored in the Middle East... That in turn pressured speculators to surrender positions in December crude oil futures throughout the session, with oil falling towards $46/bbl after lunch before closing down almost 3% at $47.50/bbl... Sectors taking advantage early on were airlines and other transportation-related sectors, while energy gave up gains made a day earlier...
Cheaper oil, however, was only one factor playing into the market's slow climb higher - a sense that investors would miss out on a year-end rally prompted more buying interest and short covering throughout the day... The fact that the indices made their way through a series of resistance levels, without succumbing to selling interest, only reinforced the idea that the market was poised for further gains... Technology was the leader of the rally, as every sub-sector from semiconductor to disk drive took part in an advance that pushed the Nasdaq through levels not seen since late June...

Contributing to the tech rally was news of a new CEO at Intel (INTC 23.17 +0.31), a Merrill Lynch upgrade on Advance Micro Devices (AMD 18.59 +1.30), and growing confidence that Dell (DELL 37.25 +0.40) would again report strong quarterly results (the company reported EPS of $0.33, in line with analysts' expectations)... Such strength in these areas was enough to offset weakness in software makers Oracle (ORCL 13.14 -0.24) and PeopleSoft (PSFT 22.43 -0.36) following news PeopleSoft's management rejected Oracle's final offer price... Areas in the blue chips that exhibited relative weakness included beverage, in response to Coca-Cola's (KO 40.92 -0.25) warning that it was slashing long-term sales and profit targets...NYSE Adv/Dec 2414/885, Nasdaq Adv/Dec 2041/1063