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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Indices Rally on Greece Debt Rescue Hopes


By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader

The stock market indices had a volatile day in a very news-influenced session, particularly on debt news surrounding Greece. The indices gapped up, rallied and then rolled over hard, but held the 3-day rising trendlines, rallied sharply when the story hit that Germany was possibly going to help guarantee Greece’s financial debt problems,

Later on a German Finance minister said no decisions had been reached, and one would likely not be made until till next week, at that point the indices slipped sharply and gave back half their rally within minutes. Later in the session when they could not rally back through key resistance at NDX 1760 and SPX 1075 they rolled over in the last half hour and pared back the gains.

Still, it was a bullish session as the Dow was up 150.25 at 10,058.64, the S&P 500 gained 13.78 at 1070.52, and the Nasdaq 100 was up 18.96 to 1753.84.

Advance-declines were positive by nearly 4 to 1 on New York and by 2 1/2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 6 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of about 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded right at 2 billion shares and had about a little less than 4 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher as a result, except for some ultrashort ETFs. Leading the way today, RINO International (RINO) advanced 1.56 to 20.81, Sourcefire (FIRE) 1.36 to 23.63, and Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) 1.30 to 27.06.

The iShares MSCI Brazil Index ETF (EWZ) was up 2.53 to 65.37, Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) 1.51 to 63.33, Direxion Large Cap Bull 3X Shares (BGU) 1.69 to 46.18, and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) 1.12 to 36.21 on advancing oil.

Chinese stocks were generally firms again, with China Automotive (CAAS) up 72 cents to 15.79, China Agritech (CAGC) up 30 cents to 17.10, Telestone Technologies (TSTC) jumped 47 cents to 14.69, SmartHeat (HEAT) 57 cents to 11.74, and Canadian Solar (CSIQ) 77 cents to 21.43.

Xyratex (XRTX) snapped back 33 cents to 13.26.

In the junior oil sector, McMoRan Exploration (MMR) gained 69 cents to 15.51, and Brigham Exploration (BEXP) 41 cents to 14.82.

On the downside, loss leaders included UltraPro Short S&P 500 ProShares (SPXU) 1.52 to 39.98, Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) 54 cents to 21.27, Direxion Daily Emrg Mkts Bear 3X Shares (EDZ) 65 cents to 6.13, and Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) 75 cents to 18.79.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, it was a volatile session with a strong gap-up, sharp pullback, very sharp rally mid-day, followed by a pullback and a last couple-hours trading range, before a late rollover.

Although the indices did back off during the day, they held their rising 3-day channel bottoms & trendlines. That in itself is bullish. However, it remains to be seen how much further we go forward. Overhead resistance at 1768-70 on the NDX and 1079 area on the SPX will be closely monitored tomorrow to see if the indices can make further progress.

Good trading!

Harry


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