By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader
The markets had what I would consider a good consolidation retest session. After a couple strong days to the upside one would expect some profit-taking, and we did get a sharp pullback in the morning, but it held right at support on the Nasdaq 100 at 1120. In fact, three times during the session that level was tested. After the third test, the market then rallied sharply and took a run from 1118 to 1155 on the NDX. The S&P rallied from 835 to nearly 865 in the same period.
They did back off to close mixed on the day with the Dow was back under 8500 at 8479, up 36, although it traded as high as 8607 during the morning part of the session. The S&P 500 closed up 5.60 but was 11 off its high at 857, and the Nasdaq 100 at 1142.58 was down 11.76, about 22 points off its high. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 4.18 and closed nearly 7 points off its high.
The technicals, however, managed to stay positive by 2 to 1 on advance-declines and on up/down volume on New York. Total volume was about 1.85 billion. Nasdaq traded about 2.4 billion and had about a 4 to 3 positive ratio on advance/declines, but volume was 3 to 2 negative today on Nasdaq
TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed. There were some positive point-plus gainers. The airlines were strong today, with the drop of $3.50 in crude oil. United (UAUA) at 11.04 was up 2.19 on 13.4 million. Continental (CAL) at 14.46 was up 1.20 on 7 million and Delta (DAL) at 8.39 was up 1.04 on 14 million.
Agriculture stocks were mixed with CF Holdings (CF) up 2.54, Mosaic (MOS) up just 69 cents, Potash (POT) down 42 cents, and Agrium (AGU) up 46 cents.
Among the ETFs, BGU was up 1.74, DIG 1.04, and ERX 1.71.
Portfolio position Emergent BioSolutions (EBS) popped near its all-time high set on November 10 and closed at 21.22, up 1.36. Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) jumped 1.32, and most other stocks were up just fractions.
Financials had a strong early follow-through, backed off, and then came on again. Morgan Stanley (MS) closed at 14.27, up 89 cents, but well off its high at 15.62. Citigroup (C) closed at 6.08, up just 13 cents and about 50 cents off its high. Bank of America (BAC) at 14.80 was up 21 cents, but traded as high as 15.80 in the pre-market.
On the downside, SDS dropped 3.33, USO 2.77, Apple (AAPL) dropped 2.15, and BGZ was off 4.60 today.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, after a session-long down-channel was broken late in the afternoon they rallied them sharply but backed off into the close to close mixed on the session. We'll see how it goes tomorrow, but today was a positive day technically for the markets.
Good trading!
Harry
No comments:
Post a Comment