"There were a few solid and better than expected earnings reports in today and that helped."
Have you researched these reports? Most of the current reports are not done by Generally Accepted (accounting) Principles. They exclude the "one time only" charges (which are occuring every quarter) to achieve their "better than expected earnings."
They exclude the "one time only" charges (which are occuring every quarter) to achieve their "better than expected earnings."It should be pointed out that "one time charges" are included in last year's profits, when those are used to compute this year's gains relative to last year's. So the "one time charges" are added to the basis and removed from the current quote, making them look as good as possible. The effect can be quite dramatic.