Nasdaq leads the way as Dow Jones, S&P 500 rally with tech in charge

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• Stocks gain sharply as the love for megacaps returns and growth stocks lead the way.
• The Nasdaq (COMP.IND) ends +3% and leads the major indices. The S&P (SP500) finishes +2%, near all-time highs, and the Dow (DJI) closes +1.4%.
• The S&P has blown through the mid-November low resistance of 4,647 and is bumping up against the November highs of 4,705.
• "Violent rally, number of names up 7% or more today is wild ... that 4500 convergence of supports in $SPX held like a boss!" Joe Kunkle of OptionsHawk tweets.
• All 11 S&P sectors close higher, with Info Tech well in the lead, up 3.5%. Consumer Staples is at the bottom.
• All six megacaps end sharply higher. Apple gets another $200 price target. The stock is now about 7% away from a $3T market cap.
• "Volatility is on the rise," Greg Peters of PGIM says on Bloomberg. "There's so much uncertainty, valuations are much more stretched, you have central banks kind of looking the other way, it seems to me, and we're in for a much more volatile ride going forward."
• The yield curve is flattening today. After a strong jump Monday, the 10-year Treasury yield is up 4 basis points to 1.47%. The 2-year is up 5 basis points to 0.68%.
• Societe Generale's Kit Juckes says a Fed announcement of faster tapering at the next meeting is a layup.
• "That’s an easy sell (by a hawk, to a dove), because it commits the Fed to nothing on rates and with yields this well anchored, why not taper faster?" he says.
• A sooner liftoff in rates could be good news for income investors.
• See the stocks making the biggest moves this afternoon.