Stock Indices Marginally Higher |
By Harry Boxer |
Published
08/18/2010
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Stocks
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Unrated
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Stock Indices Marginally Higher
The stock market indices ended marginally higher today and had an interesting path. They opened lower with a gap down, broke support and did a severe test of the three-day rising trend line and lateral price support on the Nasdaq 100 near the 1835 level. On the S&P 500 the early plunge got it down to 1086, right at key initial support as well.
When those levels held early on, the indices bounced, backed and filled, and then took off and rallied sharply to retest yesterday’s highs and the current rally high by midday. They couldn’t get through on three attempts, and then backed off the last couple hours to finish at the afternoon lows, giving back about 40%-50% of the gains, and ending just marginally higher.
Net on the day, the Dow closed up 9.69 at 10,415.54, about 57 points off its earlier high. The S&P 500 was up 1.62 at 1094.16, about 5 1/2 points off its high, and the Nasdaq 100 up 5.43 at 1850.80, 12 points off its high.
Advance/declines were 17 to 12 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, but just 13 to 12 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume about 5 to 3 positive on New York with total volume of a light 900 million shares today. Nasdaq traded 1 2/3 billion shares, and had a better than 2 to 1 positive ratio.
TheTechTrader.com board was mostly higher, but there were very few point-plus gainers. Leading the way was low-priced BSD Medical (BSDM), which had the biggest percentage gain of all today, closing at 2.97, up 1.84, a 161% gain today.
Point-plus gainers on our board today included Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 1.10 at 253.07, Cree Inc. (CREE) up 1.41 at 59.72, and Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL), one of our favorite junior solars, up 1.11 at 23.54. In addition, The LGL Group, Inc. (LGL) jumped 1.54 to 17.50 today.
Among other gainers of note, Cardica Inc. (CRDC) was up 52 cents to 2.18, a big percentage gainer. Nanometrics Incorporated (NANO) gained 46 cents to 13.84, OmniVision Technologies Inc. (OVTI) snapped back 58 cents to 21.49, and RINO International Corporation (RINO) jumped 65 cents to 16.32.
On the downside, Google Inc. (GOOG) lost 8.37 to 482.15, and was the only point-plus loser on our board today.
Other fractional losers today were BP Exploration plc (BP) down 75 cents to 37.30, and Westport Innovations Inc. (WPRT) lost 46 cents to 18.20.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down early, rally sharply by midday, and rolled over in the afternoon to take back a big chunk of the gains, failing at key resistance, which now remains around 1100 SPX and 1862-3 zone on the NDX.
Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com.
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