More Than Momentum: Stocks Rising for a Reason

NEW YORK (AP) - Wall Street advanced sharply Monday, with solid preliminary results from IBM encouraging investors to go back into the stock market after last week's rout.International Business Machines Corp., one of the 30 Dow Jones industrials, released preliminary earnings estimates for the fourth quarter that were 24 percent above year-earlier levels. The results also beat the forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.After falling nearly 250 points on Friday, the Dow rose more than 170 points Monday.``The market was pretty oversold,'' said Richard E. Cripps, chief market strategist for Stifel Nicolaus. ``We were due to bounce back, and the IBM news didn't hurt.''IBM's news, coming before as earnings season is about the get under way in earnest, did raise some hopes that fourth-quarter results might not be as bad as feared.Investors also moved back into financial services stocks ahead of Citigroup Inc. read more