Note: The Skinny blog is written by Rick Smith, editor and co-founder of Local Tech Wire and business editor of WRAL.com.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – Wall Street fell back in love with tech and banking stocks Monday as the bulls returned to drive the Dow up 404 points, or nearly 4 percent, and the Nasdaq soared even more, climbing 109 points or an impressive 4.81 percent. Even the relatively stable S&P 500 posted a huge gain of 48.85 points or 4.4 percent.

And Triangle-related stockholders benefited in big ways, with the exception of GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), which barely moved as news broke about settlements in Avandia drug cases.

Cree (Nasdaq: CREE), the big loser in last Thursday’s 1,000 point Dow melt, rebounded Friday and soared Monday. Coupled with the bull rally, Cree also announced new LED product enhancements and guarantees. As a result, Cree bounced a whopping $6.26, or 9.4 percent, to close at $72.72.

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), a tech bellwether and one of the Park’s largest employers, jumped 5.75 percent, or $1.42, to close at $26.13.

The networking giant also got positive endorsements from two Wall Street analysts on Monday. They expect Cisco to beat earnings expectations on Wednesday when Chairman john Chambers announces the latest quarterly financials.

Yes, Big Blue climbed, too. IBM (NYSE: IBM) improved $4.17 or 3.4 percent, to close at $126.17.

Red Hat jumped as well, topping the Nasdaq average gain with a strong $1.41 improvement, or $5.13 percent, to end the day at $28.90.

And Tekelec added another 3.5 percent to its recovery from last week’s post-earnings bashing with a 51-cent gain to $15.10. Tekelec (Nasdaq: TKLC) finished up 3.5 percent.

Let’s not forget NetApp (Nasdaq: NTAP) up 8 percent; EMC (NYSE: EMC) up 4 percent; Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) up 8 percent; and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) up 6 percent.

In our stock sample, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), BB&T (NYSE: BBT) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) also posted strong gains of 5.5 percent or more. Bank investors must have loved that Greek/euro bailout. First Citizens (Nasdaq: FCNCA) added $7.55 to close up 3.8 percent at $205.

As for tech – well, that sector has been leading the bulls. After one day of bears (and perhaps largely due to a financial glitch), the techie bull riders are back.

Get the latest news alerts: at Twitter.