'Fast Money' Recap: Tech Is for Real

Stocks in the U.S. kicked off the week with a bang Monday. The Dow added 1%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.1%, and the Nasdaq jumped 1.8%.

On CNBC's "Fast Money" TV show, the traders observed that bullish action in Merrill Lynch (MER Quote) and Apple (AAPL Quote) helped lead large-cap technology and financials higher. A relief from surging oil prices also helped drive the rally in stocks today, they said.

Guy Adami said that the large-cap technology story is real. He said Microsoft (MSFT Quote), Cisco (CSCO Quote) and Intel (INTC Quote) behaved appropriately in today's market.

Jeff Macke said that investors should respect today's price action. He pointed out that there were many reasons to sell stocks today, but buyers came out and brought the market higher. He said the shorts who hate this market are on the wrong side of the trade.

Pete Najarian pointed out good news from Research In Motion (RIMM Quote). He said Apple is riding the coattails of RIM's rise. He said Apple's price action looks strong and the stock may be cheap on the basis of its forward price-to-earnings ratio.

Further Rumblings

A report said that Hewlett-Packard (HPQ Quote) may buy Electronic Data Systems (EDS Quote) in a deal valued at between $12 billion and $13 billion.

Najarian said that IBM (IBM Quote) looks strong on this news because its business services acquisitions have already hit the bottom line. He said this deal would cost H-P a lot of money. He noted interesting call activity in EDS as this news broke.

Macke said that H-P shares got beaten down on this news. He noted that the company will be reporting earnings soon.