4:30 pm : Large-cap tech rallied after it had lagged last week. That helped the Nasdaq outperform, but it was the Dow that set a new two-year high as it advanced more than 100 points to settle just 20 points shy of the 12,000 mark.

Tech stocks were a bit mixed in early trade, but buying quickly picked up after the sector started to run. Tech stocks settled with a 1.6% gain.

NVIDIA (NVDA 24.73, +2.51) was a leader among tech issues following positive mention in the financial press over the weekend. Heavyweight tech issues Microsoft (MSFT 28.38, +0.36), Intel (INTC 21.24, +0.42), and Cisco (CSCO 21.17, +0.44) complemented its strength and, in turn, drove both the Nasdaq Composite and Nasdaq 100 to their best percentage gains in three weeks. IBM (IBM 159.63, +4.13) also caught a big bid, which took the stock to a new record high and helped drive the Dow to within just 20 points of the 12,000 line for the first time since June 2008.

J.C. Penney (JCP 32.52, +2.18) shares made their sharpest single-session spike in three months after the retailer said that it will take strategic actions to maximize growth and profitability. The stock settled comfortably above its 50-day moving average for the first time in two weeks. The rest of the retail space failed to follow, though; they advanced just 0.3%.

Market participants were generally unimpressed by the latest round of earnings, which featured a bottom line beat by Halliburton (HAL 39.55, +0.36) and in-line results from McDonald's (MCD 75.38, +0.37). Both were relative laggards.

7:03PM February gold is lower after hours; currently -$7.00 at $1337.50/ounce (GLD) 130.36 -0.67 :  

7:02PM March crude oil extends today's losses in after hours trading; March crude is currently -32 cents at $87.55/barrel (USO) 36.93 -0.58 :  

7:00PM SL Green Rlty beats by $0.07, beats on revs (SLG) 71.50 +0.73 : Reports Q4 (Dec) funds from operations of $0.97 per share, $0.07 better than the Thomson Reuters consensus of $0.90; revenues rose 10.0% year/year to $267.2 mln vs the $232.8 mln consensus.