The market had a similar day to yesterday in that it spent most of the day, after the early gap-up, in a consolidation range on the Nasdaq and in a corrective looking down channel on the S&P, but net on the day the indices were up with poor technicals again
The day started with a big gap-up, as indicated, a very sharp pullback, and then they rallied through the morning and into the lunch hour on Nasdaq, almost retesting the highs but trailing miserably on the S&P and Dow, and at that point the indices sold off again, retested the session lows on the S&P and the mid-day lows on the Nasdaq, and rallied back to near the close when the market backed off again.
Net on the day the Dow was up 71 1/2, the S&P was up 3 1/4, the Nasdaq 100 up a little less than 16 and the SOX was up 5 3/4, and kept Nasdaq buoyant all day.
But the advance-declines were lower today, despite higher up/down volume, by about 17 to 14 negative on New York and 16 to 13 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was slightly positive by 8 to 7, with 1.5 billion traded on New York, with nearly 1.8 billion traded on Nasdaq with a little less than 2 to 1 positive ratio.
The rally is narrowly focused now with many stocks not participating, and that's usually the sign of a tired market that is about to roll over, but we said that yesterday and the market was up again today.
Momentum is still strong enough, has not been broken, and the market is not giving this one up easily.
Reviewing TheTechTrader.com board, the outstanding stocks today were Apple Computer (AAPL) up 2.40. World Poker Tour (WPTE) was up 1.22 on possible renewed bids for the company.
Among the large-cap stocks, Broadcom (BRCM) was up 58 cents and Intel (INTC) 29 cents. They led the SOX today. The SMH was up 37 cents and the QQQQ up 38 cents.
On the downside, the recent explosive move in Host America (CAFÉ) was thwarted early on and it gave back 1.37. Dynamic Materials (BOOM) got tripped up below 40, and closed down 1.02.
Other stocks of note on the downside, Georesources (GEOI) was down 58 cents and Able Energy (ABLE) 75 cents in the junior energy sector, as oil came down sharply today.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly patterns, as indicated nothing's been broken yet, as the indices did back and fill today in a rather orderly way, and no top pattern has been completed and the uptrend is still intact, but it's getting way long in the tooth, as they say.
It looks like at this point, they may wait till options expire tomorrow and then bring them down next week.
Good trading!
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.