9:00am (EST)
It was a good day for the bulls as a bunch of deal making and analyst upgrades helped propel the market higher. Leading the Dow was Alcoa (AA, $15.73, up $1.15) as it surged 8% on a Morgan Stanley (MS, $29.66, up $0.45) upgrade and announced an $11 billion joint venture in Saudi Arabia. Alcoa accounted for 9 of the Dow’s 85 point gain as the index finished at 10,414. BTW, 20 days left for…Alcoa’s earnings.
Intel (INTC, $20.09, up $0.46) led the way higher for the Nasdaq which gained 26 ticks and settled at 2,235. The high was 2,242 and we just mentioned Sunday night our near-term target is 2,275. Are we there yet? No, but we are getting close…
As far as the S&P 500, it chipped in with an 11 point gained and closed at 1,114. We are hoping to get a push to 1,175 for the index and historically, the last two weeks of December are bullish. Heck, the last 10 trading days of December 2008 were even bullish. Although it’s hard to trust history repeating itself year after year, this is one cycle in the market traders like to bank on.
Of course, we do feel the market has a chance to end the year with a bang and we pegged those aforementioned targets for the Dow (10,800), S&P 500 (1,175) and Nasdaq (2,275) back in August. We have been pretty accurate with market action all year long and we are starting to get a pulse for 2010. Folks, things could get really interesting in January.
Another sector that performed well yesterday was Healthcare. We mentioned yesterday the Senate voted to advance health-care legislation and that could be a stocking-stuffer by Thursday.
Stocks that got a bump include Aetna (AET, $34.04, up $1.53), Cigna (CI, $37.19, up $1.39), Coventry Health Care (CVH, $25.08, up $0.52) and Wellpoint (WLP, $60.01, up $1.70). We aren’t ready to stick our toes in the water as far as an option trade but we are getting close.
One gold stock we are almost ready to pounce on like a Tiger again is Barrick Gold (ABX, $38.96, down $0.56) which tried to get back over $40 yesterday. We mentioned how gold was getting ahead of itself when we heard “$5,000/ oz.” and it looks like we got our pullback.
We profiled some Barrick Gold call options back in November for a quick 40% profit when the stock was at $35 and we were gone at $40. Shares went on to make a high of $48 and we could be setting up nicely for another trade.
Dow futures are up 30 as we head to press. We have a lot to cover in the Members Area this morning so let’s get to it. Current subscribers, check for the updates.
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