The indices had a rather flat session on Monday. They started out with a quick sharp move up, then failed quickly. A sharp sell-off ensued, testing the rising bottoms line off Friday's low and held there. They then bounced back up to re-test the highs but failed again, and went into a mid-afternoon meandering funk and drifted into the last hour. The indices then pulled back down to test that rising bottoms line again successfully, and then bounced late in the session.
But at the end of the day, the markets ended up mixed & near the flat line, with the Dow up just 8, the S&P 500 down 1.7, and the Nasdaq 100 up 6 1/3. The SOX index was down 2.24.
The technicals were negative most of the session, with the advance/declines negative by 3 to 2 in New York and a like amount in Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 8 to 5 negative on New York, but about 8 to 7 positive on Nasdaq. The total volume traded was about 1.45 billion on New York, and over 1.5 billion on Nasdaq.
TheTechTrader.com board was mixed. On the plus side, Baidu.com (BIDU) was up 5.34 on 5.5 million and the star of the day. Apple (AAPL), up $1.70, and Hanson Natural (HANS), up $1.32, were by the far the other top winners on my personal board today. Smith Micro Software (SMSI) gained $0.38, and JetBlue (JBLU), up $0.33, had fractional gains as well.
On the downside, losers included the GLD gold ETF tracking stock, down $1.90, and DXP Enterprises (DXPE) to a multi-month low, down $1.35. Other stocks of note, Dynamic Materials (BOOM) lost $0.90, Broadcom (BRCM ) $0.76, and Blue Dolphin Energy Co. (BDCO) $0.92, a big loss for a $6 stock.
Other stocks of note on the downside, Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) dropped $0.92, Leading Brands (LBIX) $0.69, PW Eagle (PWEI) $0.81, and Vertex (VRTX) $0.79.
Stepping back and looking at the hourly chart patterns, today's action basically extended Friday afternoon's pattern, and we now have a day and a half consolidation pattern, which may be setting up another leg down, but we'll see if resistance at 1475-77 on the NDX can be conquered, or support at the 1456-58 zone can be taken out.
On the S&P, those comparable numbers are 1240-42, and 1228-31 zone. We'll see how it goes tomorrow.
Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com, a real-time diary of his day, swing and intermediate-term trades. For more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a free 15-day trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary, or sign up for a free 30-day trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.