Thursday, November 13, 2008

There's your double-bottom

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks surged Thursday, with the Dow posting its third best single-session point gain ever, as the major stock gauges bounced back from levels not seen since 2003.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 552 points, according to early tallies, after falling to within 81 points of its 5-1/2 year low earlier in the session. Between the close and the low, the Dow's swing was 870 points; it was 911 points between's the day's high and the day's low.

The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index gained 6.9% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) rose 6.5%, both after touching a lows not seen since 2003.

Stocks had tumbled each day this week and through early Thursday afternoon. But the selloff left the major gauges at levels that many market pros think could represent a bear market bottom, at least in the near term.

After hitting those lows, stocks bounced back into positive territory.

"As soon as the Dow fell below 8,000, we saw a rush of buying," said Matt King, chief investment advisor at Bell Investment Advisors.

It was the second time the market "retested" those lows, which were first hit around Oct. 10. The major gauges slumped to around those levels at the end of October and now again in mid November.

"It was very positive," he said. "It seems like we have put a bottom in place."

However, he said that because the two retests happened so rapidly, there's a possibility that the market could rally for a few months and then retest again. If so, that would be similar to what happened when the last bear market bottomed in 2002 and 2003.

No comments: