Dow Soars Past 10,000, Now What?

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 4:46 pm EDT, Wednesday October 14, 2009

Stocks surged, sending the Dow past 10,000. The big question is whether this is a launching pad higher or a final destination. Right now, it looks like the former, and tomorrow's earnings could add some fuel to the rally, assuming the reports are as good as the ones to come out this morning and last night.

The Chinese IT Stocks Index was the top performing tickerspy Index on the day, led by AsiaInfo Holdings (Nasdaq: ASIA - News) with a 15% gain.

Stocks raced higher on the back of strong earnings reports, with the Dow climbing past 10,000 to end the day at 10,016, up 145 points. The S&P soared 19 points to 1,092, while the Nasdaq jumped 32 points to 2,172. Oil rose $1.03 to $75.18 a barrel, while gold slipped -30 cents to $1,064.70 an ounce.

On the economic front, the Commerce Department announced that retail sales fell -1.5% in September, better than the -2.1% drop economists were expecting. Excluding autos, sales rose 0.5%, above the 0.2% rise economists were anticipating.

In earnings news, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM - News) shares rose 3.3% after the bank reported a Q3 profit of $3.59 billion, or 82 cents per share, up from $527 million, or 9 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue soared 81% to $26.62 billion. Analysts were looking for EPS of 52 cents on revenue of $24.96 billon. Loan losses still remain high, though, as it had $7.7 billion in net consumer loan charge-offs and added $2 billion to its loan-loss reserves. Over 450 Pro investors counted the stock among their top-15 holdings at the start of Q3.

Shares on Intel (Nasdaq: INTC - News) climbed 1.7% after the semiconductor giant reported strong Q3 results. For the quarter, the company earned $1.9 billion, or 33 cents per share, down -5% from $2.0 billion, or 35 cents per share, a year earlier. Sales dropped -8% to $9.4 billion. The Wall Street consensus was for EPS of 28 cents on revenue of $9.06 billion. Looking forward, Intel guided for Q4 sales of between $9.7-$10.5 billion and gross margins of between 59-65%, both of which were well ahead of estimates. Over 300 Pro investors counted the stock among their top-15 holdings at the start of Q3.

Fellow chipmaker Altera (Nasdaq: ALTR - News) saw its Q3 earnings plummet -40% to $56.7 million, or 19 cents per share, down from $94.7 million, or 31 cents per share, a year ago. Revenue fell -20% to $286.6 million. The bottom line met analyst expectations, while the top line came in ahead of the $283.3 million consensus. For Q4, Altera expects revenue to grow 6-10% sequentially, which would be above analyst revenue estimates. The stock rose 2.2%.

Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT - News) announced Q3 net income of $1.48 billion, or 95 cents per share, up 37% from $1.09 billion, or 69 cents per share, last year. Adjusted EPS came in at 92 cents, 2 cents above analyst estimates. Revenue rose 4% to $7.76 billion. Looking ahead, the company raised its full-year EPS guidance to $3.70-$3.72 from $3.65-$3.70. The stock rose 3.1%.

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