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CNN Live Event/Special

Dow, Nasdaq End Day With Gains

Aired October 10, 2001 - 15:57   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Lou Dobbs in New York, and we're just minutes away from the closing bell on Wall Street. This session has been a strong one, stock prices moving higher across the board. We have complete market coverage for you. Rhonda Schaffler, standing by at the New York Stock Exchange. Greg Clarkin over at the Nasdaq market site.

We're going to begin with you, Rhonda, on the floor of the exchange.

RHONDA SCHAFFLER: CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Lou, we're looking at a Dow Jones industrial average that will close, close to its highs of the session. This was a rally that really continued throughout the day. It is, of course, the first rally since the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan began. And in fact, strategists are attributing the Dow's advance today to growing confidence in the success of the U.S.-led attacks.

Also, there was some descent earnings news around, but what the traders and strategists were saying is because things so far have been going well, consumers are starting to get a little bit of confidence back. And that helped lead the market to a triple-digit gain -- Lou.

DOBBS: All right, this is following early the pattern that we saw some 10 years ago with the Persian Gulf War, in which, as the United States began reacting and people sensed the strength of the country, they returned some focus on the strength of the markets themselves.

Now, we're going to go over to the Nasdaq market site. Greg Clarkin, following that market closely throughout the session -- Greg.

GREG CLARKIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And Lou, this is a rally for the tech stocks that really just kind of took on a lot of the momentum in the afternoon hours. It started off as a fairly mild rally and then just built on itself.

Traders telling us that they're sensing a lot of real buying. By that, they mean a lot of institutional buying as well as retail buying. You can see the composite right now, up about 54 points: 1,625. And traders also kind of echoing the sentiment that there's much more comfort level among investors with the military environment that we're in right now. So today was the kind of return to that. After two days, a lot of hesitation. We saw the volume pull back on Monday and Tuesday. Today, volume picked up on the Nasdaq and we saw a lot buyers come back into the market that really have been hesitant over the last couple of days: again, both big and small it appears -- Lou.

DOBBS: And the strongest performers on the Nasdaq, Greg?

CLARKIN: Right now, we're looking at the big caps with a pretty good day, but the sector really that kind of led the way today, the semiconductor stocks. We're looking at the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, up about 6 1/2 percent. That despite getting a continuation of negative kind of research notes. A lot of folks know the third quarter is going to be horrible, not expecting big things for the fourth, but still it kind of came back to that sector today in a big way.

DOBBS: And -- and what about the semiconductor sector itself?

CLARKIN: Pretty strong. Again, we saw, you know, the fundamentals are known to be weak there for the quarter, but a lot of folks just kind of feel that that's the leading indicator for the entire technology landscape basically, and they're getting back into those in a pretty, pretty big fashion this afternoon.

DOBBS: Greg, thanks. We're going to go right back to you.

The closing bell about to sound on Wall Street, capping -- there it is. The bell capping off a winning session on Wall Street. And you can hear a bit of a cheer coming up from the specialists, the floor traders there.

Strength in retail, financials, cyclical issues.

Rhonda Schaffler, it sounded like people were a little more excited today.

SCHAFFLER: They are, Lou. There's a good tone on the trading floor: In fact, it's the best the trading floor has felt. And the numbers, of course, prove that.

Cyclical stocks led the way on the Dow, including 3M. That was a standout gainer here.

Really, we saw so many sectors advance. Just want to point out the Dow transportation average closing up 99 points, a huge move there. Other winners on the Dow included General Electric. That stock actively traded. It is one of the companies reporting earnings tomorrow. A slight gain is expected there.

And some analysts reporting that not only was the news acceptable on the military strikes against Afghanistan, but also there was some good earnings news and descent expectations going forward. So really, everything that could move in the market's favor did -- Lou.

DOBBS: And how about the breadth there today? SCHAFFLER: The breadth was good. Advancers over decliners better than a 2-to-1 average. So you had good market breadth, strong gains on the numbers. And just like on the Nasdaq, a pickup in volume.

DOBBS: And the volume today?

SCHAFFLER: Volume right now settling out at just under 1.3 billion shares.

DOBBS: And we'll get a few more before it's all shut down.

SCHAFFLER: That's right.

DOBBS: Rhonda, thank you very much. Rhonda Schaffler.

Technology issues strong across the board. Back to Greg Clarkin at the Nasdaq market site -- Greg.

CLARKIN: And Lou, a lot of traders saying you can look at today as really kind of a continuation of what we saw last week and the week before. And if you recall the first week back after the attacks on the Trade Center and the Pentagon, we saw a big wash-out phase in the markets. A lot of selling, really kind of culminated on that Friday, the 21st, with lows hit on the Nasdaq of 1,387.

Since then, we had two pretty good weeks. Monday and Tuesday really they kind of explain away as a lot of folks uncertain as to the military action overseas. But today, much more comfortable with that and kind of returning to where the markets ended the last week on, a real high note. And we saw the volume pick up today: The Nasdaq up 55, 1,626 is the level.

As far as those big caps go, Microsoft up about 2 percent. Intel is up nicely, about 7 1/2 percent. Dell was up 2 1/2 percent. Oracle up 4.4 percent. And Cisco with an almost 4 percent jump on the day.

So the big-name technology shares again posting nice gains on the day, Lou. And all of the sectors, all the major tech categories were nicely higher.

DOBBS: Good, Greg. Thank you very much. I'm glad you got to participate in a winning session today.

CLARKIN: Feels good.

DOBBS: That's a quick check of the markets for you. We'll be back at 6 o'clock Eastern here on CNN for "MONEYLINE." Among my guests this evening, Wall Street veteran Harvey Eisen. "MONEYLINE" regular William Cohen, former secretary of defense, will be assessing the impact of the fourth day of strikes against the Taliban and the network of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda. And we will have, of course, all of the latest developments for you in the war against terrorism. That on "MONEYLINE," 6 o'clock Eastern, on CNN.

For now, I'm Lou Dobbs in New York. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com