The markets had what I would call an ugly day today and a nasty way to start
the week. They weren't down tremendously, but they ended far from where they
started.
The day started out with pre-market futures sharply higher. The indices
gapped up nicely ,but then sold off the rest of the morning. At mid-session when
they hit their mid-day lows and they tried to bounce, lasting about an hour, but
they couldn' t carry too far. They only took back about 30 percent of the
losses, then rolled over, retested, broke down and made lower lows, bounced
around in the last hour and held last week's support lows. In the last 15
minutes they did get a snapback that took them substantially off the lows.
Net on the day the Dow closed near 8870, down 73.27. The S&P 500 at 919
was down 11.78, and the Nasdaq 100 at 1251 was down 20.62. The Philadelphia
Semiconductor Index (SOXX) at around 214 1/2 was down 8.71, about a 4 1/2
percent loss.
Advance-declines were negative by 21 to 10 on New York and about 20 to 8 1/2
on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was more than 2 to 1 negative on New York on total
volume of less than 1.2 billion. Nasdaq traded a little more than 1 2/3 billion,
with a volume ratio of 3 1/2 to 1 negative.
TheTechTrader.com board was mixed and narrowly so for most stocks. On the
plus side, the agriculture stocks were strong in the morning, gave back a chunk
of it, but still several of them ended on the plus side. CF Holdings (CF) gained
1.45 and POT 1.06.
Alpha Natural Resources (ANR) was up 2.10 to 26.51. The SDS was up 1.51, the
QID 2.27, the FXI Chinese ETF up 1.01 and the USO up 1.06 on firm oil today.
Other than that there were only fractional gainers on our board.
On the downside, Apple (AAPL) lost 2.36, CAL 1.96, and MS 1.40. JA Solar
(JASO) lost 87 cents, Canadian Solar (CSIQ) 42 cents, C 61 cents, BRCM 52 cents,
and AFAM 66 cents. Sigma Designs (SIGM) lost 68 cents to 9.18. UAUA lost 64
cents.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns the indices had a
promising start, with a strong gap-up, but failed to follow through, and when
they broke early support, they turned south in a hurry, tried to rally back
mid-day , but continued lower in the afternoon to new session lows. Last week's
sharp lows on the NDX just above 1235 held, and a late snapback took them back
off the lows.
The trend certainly remains in doubt, but the technical damage done on
Tuesday and Friday was not abated today, as the indices retested the lows and
are in jeopardy of making lower lows and retesting much deeper levels unless
they can stem the tide here.
