THE ROARING tech rally that has some analysts worried stocks are rising too far too fast may continue unabated this morning.
At 8:15 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq 100 premarket indicator was up 12 points, or 0.6%, and S&P 500 futures were ahead of fair value by one. That indicates a modestly positive opening to regular stock trading.
Yesterday, the Nasdaq Composite Index zoomed up nearly 5%, a gain of 107 points that represented the index's fifth straight "up" day and puts it ahead by a striking 40% for the year. Money managers are now starting to jump into the tech sector just because of momentum: They're afraid of missing out on a big rally and are losing sight of the fundamental fact that earnings continue to be poor.
Such buying was a key ingredient for the tech bubble of 1999 and 2000 and is raising concern that a big piece of bad profit news from a tech bellwether -- or a shock from the Middle East or elsewhere -- could send the market plummeting back to its levels of the spring. Quietly, crude oil is again trading above $30 a barrel, which is raising nascent inflation concerns.
Yesterday, the techs pulled their Old Economy colleagues out of the doldrums and they managed minor gains by the close. The Dow industrials picked up 0.3% to 11338. That's a level unseen since January 2000, near the peak of the tech bubble. Of course, the Dow didn't fall as far as the Nasdaq so it has a shorter distance to go to restore its former levels. The industrials are now just 385 points from their Jan. 14, 2000, peak of 11722.98.
Courtesy of Smartmoney
At 8:15 a.m. ET, the Nasdaq 100 premarket indicator was up 12 points, or 0.6%, and S&P 500 futures were ahead of fair value by one. That indicates a modestly positive opening to regular stock trading.
Yesterday, the Nasdaq Composite Index zoomed up nearly 5%, a gain of 107 points that represented the index's fifth straight "up" day and puts it ahead by a striking 40% for the year. Money managers are now starting to jump into the tech sector just because of momentum: They're afraid of missing out on a big rally and are losing sight of the fundamental fact that earnings continue to be poor.
Such buying was a key ingredient for the tech bubble of 1999 and 2000 and is raising concern that a big piece of bad profit news from a tech bellwether -- or a shock from the Middle East or elsewhere -- could send the market plummeting back to its levels of the spring. Quietly, crude oil is again trading above $30 a barrel, which is raising nascent inflation concerns.
Yesterday, the techs pulled their Old Economy colleagues out of the doldrums and they managed minor gains by the close. The Dow industrials picked up 0.3% to 11338. That's a level unseen since January 2000, near the peak of the tech bubble. Of course, the Dow didn't fall as far as the Nasdaq so it has a shorter distance to go to restore its former levels. The industrials are now just 385 points from their Jan. 14, 2000, peak of 11722.98.
Courtesy of Smartmoney
