Tag - Llc

Small-cap stocks took flight Thursday, soaring to the highest daily close since Jan. 2, powered by a rally in the downtrodden financial sector and by money flow away from commodities and debt markets into stocks. The latter trends were likely boosted by a tumble in crude oil, which slipped below $127 dollars a barrel, and by a rally in the U.S. dollar, which climbed about 0.8% against both the euro and the yen. The Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) rose 7.09, or 0.96%, to 745.55, but did slip late off the highs when a test of key resistance near 750 attracted sellers.

Shortly after the regular market close, Dell Inc. (Nasdaq:DELL) reported earnings above the forecast, and the stock climbed about 5% on the immediate response in after-hours trading, which could provide a boost to stocks in general overnight if the buying interest remains in place.

Small-cap stocks assumed a leadership role on the rally Thursday compared with large-cap index products, and have in fact held up better recently even on down days — a possible sign that stocks are not as vulnerable at these levels as was feared.

“Small caps have been outpacing large caps on the open corporate debt market and firm credit conditions,” Nick Kalivas, vice president of financial research at MF Global told SmallCapInvestor.com in an email interview. “Risk-taking has picked up over the past two months given the dynamics in the corporate bond market.” He noted that the rest of the rise versus large caps is more index-related, tied to the underlying stocks in each product.

Kalivas also said that month-end window dressing had a role in the rally today in stocks, with pharmacy and financial shares attracting buyers while energy and commodity markets, which had been the hot zone, were pulled down by profit-taking. What’s more, Kalivas said that small caps have a timing tendency to rally at the turn of the month, and that appeared to be taking place once again.

The Commodity Futures Trading Association today announced a sweeping investigation into crude oil futures trading, and Kalivas said that news could be helping out . . .