By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader
The markets had a spectacular session, starting with a gap up. They ran early, consolidated, and then ran again mid-morning. At that point they went into a narrow trading range ahead of the FOMC announcement. The FOMC elected to drop rates by 3/4 of a percent to a 1/4, and Wall Street liked it. The indices popped sharply, with the NDX in 15 minutes running from about 1210 to 1230. The S&P 500 jumped from about 884 to 899. They then backed and filled for another 25-30 minutes, and then exploded again, taking out the highs and running up sharply. They did get a late pullback, but in the last 10 minutes bounced sharply and closed at the highs for the day on the Dow and S&P 500, with the NDX trailing just a bit.
Net on the day the Dow was up 360 at 8924, the S&P 500 up nearly 45 at 913 and change, and the Nasdaq 100 up 61.62 at 1243.49. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up a big 12.29 today to 221.51.
Advance-declines were spectacular to the plus side today, with 2682 issues up and only 479 down, about 5 1/2 to 1, on New York. Nasdsaq was 2272 to 676, about 3 1/2 to 1 positive. Up/down volume was even better, with nearly 1.45 billion shares traded to the upside and only 86 million to the downside on New York. Nasdaq had more than 2 billion shares on the upside and only 139 million to the downside.
So a huge day today for the indices, with a very strong positive ratio on the technicals!
I will imagine that the oscillators will jump sharply after today's performance.
Every stock was up today on TheTechTrader.com board except for the short instruments and the USO, which pulled back 40 cents on the drop in the price of crude oil.
Leading the way by far was the agriculture group, with POT jumping 7.66 to 76.91, MOS up 4.50 to 35.96, CF up 5.94 to 53.77, and AGU up 3.75 to 34.52. Big gains today in that sector on a big volume as several of them broke out through key resistance.
Among the ETFs, portfolio position BGU jumped 5.01 to 37.87, the EWZ jumped 2.46 to 39.18, and the DIG jumped 1.87 to 31.44 despite the drop in oil. The QLD was up 2.45 to 28.50.
Other stocks of note, ENER had a late rally and jumped to 22.93, up 2.07. MS had a big session, gaining 2.49 on 52 million shares to close at 16.13. RIMM jumped 3.08 to 39.94, and portfolio position SPWR at 32.25 was up 1.71 today. UEPS, also a portfolio position, advanced81 cents at 11.88. SQNM, which we added today at 18.82, closed at 20.16, up 53 cents on a big reversal.
GEO, a former Chart of the Week, at 19.25 was up 1.21. Yesterday's Chart of the Day DRYS advanced 94 cents on 26.7 million, closing at 11.13. EXM also jumped 63 cents to 7.98 in the strong shipping sector. ACH at 15.02 was up 1.43, and is now up more than 100% off its October low.
On the downside, the QID dropped 6.68, and the BGZ fell more than 10 points today at 58.03, as would be expected on a big up-day as they are short instruments.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the key to today's action was that early on they broke up and through declining tops lines and moving averages on the hourly charts, extended the gains and consolidated bullishly all session, closing near the highs for the day going away in a very spectacular session. On the downside, there is key overhead resistance on the S&P 500 near the 919-20 zone, and on the NDX near the 1249-50 zone. The indices are just ahead, and we expect a test of that early tomorrow morning. A breakout above those key levels should lead to initial sharp gains for the indices, and no question that today was an important session for the bulls.
Good trading!
Harry
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