The sell-off accelerated to the downside today, following up on the steep
drop earlier this week. The indices gapped down in the morning, bounced back
initially but then made lowers lows all day until a mid-afternoon rally brought
them back sharply. However, they could not extend beyond yesterday's lows, which
now are resistance, particularly on the Nasdaq 100, and rolled over and plunged
to new lows, closing at the lows for the day going away.
Net on the day the Dow was down 449, the S&P 500 more than 57, and the
Nasdaq 100 down 91.63, one of the steepest drops we've seen in memory. The
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down just 4.28.
Advance-declines were almost 15 to 1 negative on New York and 5 to 1 negative
on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was nearly 20 to 1 on New York on total volume of 2.2
billion. Nasdaq traded more than 3.1 billion and had a ratio of about 6 to 1
negative on declining over advancing volume.
TheTechTrader.com board obviously had some big losses today, although there
were some major gainers in the short instruments. The SDS, for example, was up
6.68 and the QID up 5.41. The USO advanced 2.81 with the price of oil. The DUG
was up 1.37.
One standout in the low-priced sector was China Architectural (CAEI), up 91
cents. It was heavily shorted, and new naked short rules were put in today. Also
in that area, heavily shorted EMKR jumped 47 cents to 5.13.
On the downside, loss leaders included MS, which got hammered for 7.52 to
21.18. GS dropped 18.51 to 114 1/2, and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) dropped
4.46 today to 58.75. FCMN was down 2.59, FSYS down 2.15, Sequenom (SQNM) 2.43,
and TWP 2.26. CLNE was down 1.23, and Converted Organics (COIN) dropped. 1.24
after announcing a redemption of their warrants.
CAL fell 3.07, closing at 18.22, on the rise in oil, and UAUA dropped 1.49.
So, very steep losses on our board, and not a pretty sight.
The indices are extremely oversold at this point (NYSE McClellan oscillator
closed at -264!) and heading into what appears to be a climax low, likely in a
timeframe of between Friday and Monday by our estimation.
