Alert the media -- the market is up two days in a row! We had a follow-up positive day today, but it was a struggle for most of the session.
Despite the fact that the market gapped up nicely from the get-go and had a secondary move, they got right to yesterday's highs on the NDX and just a tad above them on the S&P, which obviously was not confirmed by the NDX. Then the market backed off, retested, came on again, struggled for a few hours, but late in the session did manage to pop out, taking out initial resistance at 1505 NDX and just barely so on the S&P at around 1175.
But there was a quick pullback in the last 10 minutes that took them off the highs.
Net on the day the Dow was up 37, the S&P 5 1/2, the Nasdaq 100 18 1/2, and the Nasdaq Composite up 26. The SOX was up a stellar 2 1/2 percent, more than 10 points today, and that certainly helped Nasdaq.
The technicals were strong ,with advance /declines about 23 to 9 on New York and about 21 to 9 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was better than 2 to 1 positive on New York, but total volume was only about 1.15 billion. Nasdaq had about 1 2/3 billion traded, but it was nearly 3 to 1 to the upside.
While the technicals were positive, price action was fairly unimpressive, and even though late in the session they did manage to break out we'll see if they can follow through tomorrow.
TheTechTrader.com trading board was mostly higher. As a result of the SOX index advancing more than 10 points, chip stocks had a very solid day, with Broadcom (BRCM) up 1.04 and the SMH 73 cents.
In the smaller-cap sector, Mikron (MIKR) was up 1.12, snapping back solidly. Compuware (CPWR) on solid earnings today was up 1.27 on very heavy volume.
Among our recent Charts of the Week, Watchboard stocks Spectralink (SLNK) was up 61 cents, Keryx (KERX), up 72 cents, Harmonic Lightwave (HLIT) was up 75 cents, and Applied Digital (ADSX) was up 37 cents.
On the downside, Parlux Fragrances (PARL) dropped 58 cents and Cryptologic (CRYP) 22 cents.
Stepping back and reviewing the overall patterns, the expected turnaround Tuesday yesterday led to further advances today, but the overall patterns do not have me convinced. This could yet be just a snapback in an overall ongoing downtrend.
There is much more overhead resistance to contend with. I'll be looking tomorrow at the 1515-20 zone for starters and beyond that 1530-33 on the Nasdaq 100. On the S&P 500, 1180 and then the 1190-95 zone, where there's very formidable resistance, will be the levels to watch tomorrow.
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.