The stock market indices had a mixed session at the close, but technicals were lousy, and we had a real steep afternoon sell-off, followed by a late afternoon rebound, mostly due to Apple Inc. (AAPL) gyrations today.
Apple exploded this morning and ran up to 594.72. At that point, it was up 26 1/2 points, and then it rolled over to 575.40, nearly 20 points, and took the whole market down sharply. The Nasdaq 100 rolled over steeply, and the S&P 500 did as well. They rallied back with Apple coming back to 589.58, up 21.48, on 50 million shares. That's huge volume. The amount of dollars that went into that stock today was incredible.
The day started out with a gap up, a run up, and a pullback in falling wedges. When I saw those, I thought we were going to snapback, and we did. The NDX went to new highs, but the SPX didn't. When that occurred, that's when the steep sell-off occurred. The NDX, after reaching as high as just under 2718, then sold off sharply to 2690 within the next 45 minutes or so. They snapped back, tested, and then pulled back one more time to do a retest before the rally brought them into the plus column for the NDX and Dow.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 16.42 at 13,194.10, reaching as high as 13,221. The S&P 500 was down 1.67 to 1394.28, reaching as high as 1399. The Nasdaq 100 was up 10.98 at 2708.41, reaching a high of 2717.86.
Advance-declines were nearly 3 to 1 negative, with 802 up and 2228 down on the New York Stock Exchange, and more than 2 to 1 negative on Nasdaq, with 799 up and 1731 down. Up/down volume was 5 to 3 negative on New York, with total volume of 840 million shares traded today. Nasdaq traded about 1.63 billion shares and had a 9 to 7 negative volume ratio.
TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was narrowly mixed, with some outstanding gainers and losers. Leading the way on the upside was low-priced Helios & Matheson Information (HMNY), up 1.78 to 4.64, or 62%. However, it traded much higher today, up to 7.00, on 264,867 million shares, which is huge for that stock, but that was a very negative close for a gap up.
Endocyte, Inc. (ECYT) was up 2.17 to 5.89, 58%, on 12 million shares, closing near the high for the day. SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SCLN) jumped 1.10 to 6.36, or 21%, on 3.6 million shares. It also had a negative close, reaching as high as 6.97 and closing at 6.36.
Guidewire Software, Inc. (GWRE) gained 4.39 to 30.04, or 17%, on 821,000 shares, which is about double the average shares.