Courtesy of Blain.
Wednesday’s action was almost a 180 degree turn from Tuesday’s with the S&P 500 up 0.92% and the NASDAQ 1.47%. Sone vague belief in (yet another) resolution in Greece seemed to be the catalyst. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said on Wednesday the negotiations are on the “final stretch” towards a positive deal, Reuters reported. Later in the day, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said there was not much progress in the Greek debt talks and he was surprised by the upbeat tone from some Greek government officials. Athens must make a 300 million euro payment to the International Monetary Fund on June 5, ahead of several other payments due to the IMF later in the month, for a total of 1.6 billion euros.
We’ll see if yesterday’s move was the head fake or today’s was shortly.
As with almost every rally in the NASDAQ nowadays, it begins and ends with Apple (AAPL) and the biotech stocks (ETF: IBB). With both up 2% you have a large % of the NASDAQ index sharply up.
Semiconductors (ETF: SMH) also surged.
Chip company Broadcom (BRCM) jumped nearly 22 percent for its best day since April 10, 2001, after Dow Jones reported the chip company was in talks to be bought by peer Avago Technologies.
Michael Kors (KORS) fell one cent shy of estimates with quarterly profit of 90 cents per share, with revenue essentially in line. The company, however, reported its slowest sales growth in 3-1/2 years, and its full-year forecast was below Street estimates. This was an ugly chart before today’s news – and it just got a whole lot uglier.
Toll Brothers (TOL) earned 37 cents per share for its latest quarter, two cents above estimates. The luxury home builder did see revenue come in below estimates as the number of homes sold fell two percent.
