.
Stocks surge on data, profit views
Dow industrials jump 178 points Nasdaq rallies 45
By Roland Jones
MSNBC
Feb. 25 — Stocks closed Monday’s trading session with strong gains, helping the Dow industrials to close back above the key 10,000 level, as investors reacted to some upbeat earnings reports and data that show a record rise in home sales in January.
Positive earnings forecasts from General Motors, Qualcomm and others helped investors to set aside nagging concerns about the quality of corporate earnings and buy up stocks on Monday.
Shortly after the start of trading, the National Association of Realtors, a real estate industry trade group, reported sales of single-family homes surged to a record high of 16.2 percent in January, the largest single monthly increase on record and much higher than Wall Street had expected.
The upbeat housing data nudged up stock prices, which were already rallying in the wake of auto-making giant General Motors’ announcement that it has raised its earnings outlook for the first quarter and for the whole of 2002.
GM said it sees better-than-expected industry sales in the United States and strong retail vehicle sales.
Supporting the Nasdaq were shares of wireless technology vendor Qualcomm, which jumped 9.8 percent after the firm said it expects earnings in its second quarter to be in line with analysts’ expectations. Qualcomm also said chip shipments met the high end of targets.
Another strong tech firm was Sun Microsystems. Its share price jumped 9.9 percent after Banc of America Securities upgraded the networking firm from “market performer” to “buy”. |
