Strong chips boost stocks

WEAK holiday retail sales — no surprise — and strength in chips and hardware — a surprise — fuelled a strong rally in US stocks yesterday.

Around 11.35am ET, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 152.22 to 8747.53, the S&P 500 index was up 926.10 to 926.10 and the Nasdaq composite was up 40.91 to 1441.98.

“I think that there is an upward bias. The market for the first time in a long while is wanting to go up,” said Douglas Altabef, managing director at Matrix Asset Advisors. “Today, people are focusing on some of the networking news, and retail was mixed, but not a disaster, so maybe there’s some comfort in that.”