Nice gains for the major indexes today

     It was a nice day of gains for the market today after a huge turnaround sent the DJIA up 300 pts in a matter of hours.  The market was down as much as 2% in the early going as worse than expected GDP data and europe fears weighed on market sentiment.  No stimulis from Bernanke also compounded negativity.  Markets quickly turned around however and rallied nicely throughout the day finishing up over 1% on the day led by the technology heavy NASDAQ which gained over 2%!

     Quite a nice showing by the bulls today who latched on to Bernanke's words about continuing economic growth and no recession and ran with it.  I think we will get some follow through action next week unless we get some bad news out of Europe like Greece having to tap its emergency fund.

      My stocks were up nicely today and I put on another trade on the turnaround today buying some XLE.  I like the secular story with energy and prices are cheap enough for me to take a stab at a rally.

      AAPL also did very well today as traders bid up the technology giant.  Steve Jobs health was an overhang that was causing the price to stay low relative to its growth rate and now that we have clarity on the situation, AAPL shares are free to rise.  AAPL is one of the strongest stocks in the market right now and should definitely be bought on weakness.

      NLY had been plunging the past couple of days almost 6% on no news but rallied back nicely today finishing up 2%.  I suspect people may be selling because of the flattening of the yield curve which could possibly lessen NLY's spread and therefore its dividend.  I still think MREITs are one  of the best ideas for the next few years in this low growth, low interest rate environment.

Disclosure:  Long NLY, AAPL, XLE