TECH STOCKS: Hearing No Ill, Shares Soar

A tentative first half of the day gave way to a significant rally Monday. If there was consensus on what caused the rise (and one would be hard pressed to find that consensus), it seems to be that investors will keep buying as long as there are no surprises in earnings and the economy. Today's trading appears to bear that out.

All of our indexes hovered around their opening levels for hours--the Nasdaq was actually underwater--until investors figured out Monday would be a good-news day. Then, boom, big increases on relatively light volumes.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 1.41%, or 29.96 points, to 2,153.83. Our InformationWeek 100 nipped just behind, rising 1.39%, or 4.77 points, to 347.21. The Dow industrials rose 1.27%, or 134.22 points, to 10,702.51, and the S&P 500 rose 1.21%, or 13.82 points, to 1,155.37.

The Nasdaq-100 tracking stock rose 1.53%, or 58 cents, to close at $38.59, on moderate trading of 82.6 million shares. We cite the Nasdaq-100 as a more-targeted way of understanding how individual tech shares fared.