The March to Dow 10,000 Continues

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 5:03 pm EDT, Friday September 18, 2009

Stocks wrestled with breakeven on this quadruple witching Friday before moving higher to post solid gains. At this point, it looks like the path of least resistance is up and that we'll see the Dow hit 10,000 before the end of the month. CNBC today interestingly pointed out a plethora of put buying about 10 days ago (likely due to insurance protection, not a bet on the downside) in the S&P 500, but noted historically over the past two decades that the market has risen 10-20% over the next 3-6 months when put buying hits these extreme levels.

The Textile Stocks Index was the top performing tickerspy Index on the day, led by Unifi Inc (NYSE: UFI - News) with a 18% gain.

Stocks rose to close the week, with the Dow up 36 points to 9,820. The S&P added 3 points to 1,068, while the Nasdaq climbed 6 points to 2,133. Oil slipped -43 cents to $72.01 a barrel, while gold dipped -$3.20 to $1,010.30 an ounce.

In earnings news, smartphone maker Palm (Nasdaq: PALM - News) posted a fiscal Q1 loss after preferred dividends of -$164.5 million, or -$1.17 per share, compared with a loss of -$41.9 million, or -39 cents per share, a year ago. Adjusted EPS was a loss of -10 cents. Sales tumbled to $68 million from $366.9 million due to an accounting change, while adjusted sales came in at $360.7 million. The results easily bested analyst expectations for a loss of -24 cents on adjusted sales of $297.7 million. The company guided for fiscal Q2 EPS of $240-$270 million, well below estimates of $344.4 million. The stock fell -3.0%. Ten Pro investors counted the stock among their top-15 holdings at the start of Q3.

Chinese digital advertising firm Focus Media (Nasdaq: FMCN - News) announced a Q2 loss from continuing operations of -$44.5 million, versus a loss of $-2.3 million a year ago. Adjusted net income was $2.8 million. Net revenue from continuing operations fell -23% to $82.1 million. The stock fell -6.3%.

In analyst action, SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK - News) shares got a 5.5% boost after the flash memory maker's stock was upgraded to "buy" from "underperform" at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Analyst Simon Dong-je Woo also raised his target more than $20 to $30, saying he expects a shortage of NAND chips until 2011. This in turn will cause NAND prices to rise, and SanDisk's earnings to soar. Eleven Pro investors counted the stock among their top-15 holdings at the start of Q3.

Coffeehouse operator Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX - News) hit a new 52-week high, rising 3.4%, after the company was the recipient of an upgrade at PiperJaffray. Analyst Nicole Miller Regan raised her rating to "overweight" from "neutral" and increase her price target to $24 from $13. The analyst expects same-store sales to moderately improve and margins to expand.

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