(By Harry Boxer) The stock market indices had a very difficult session, especially at the get-go when foreign news caused the markets to open on the downside, and then the unemployment news came out, and it was not good. The indices moved steadily lower, and sharply so, most of the morning. By midmorning, they stabilized and bounced, but could not follow through initial resistance, and then rolled over to make nominal new lows. When it was apparent they weren't going to get any sharp downside follow-through, and that the pullback came with lack of thrust, they then bounced back nicely in the last hour, hour-and-a-half, to close substantially off the lows, but beneath overhead key resistance.
Net of the day, the Dow was down 124.29 at 12,772.47. The S&P 500, in particular, rallied from 1348 to 1356, closing at 1354.61, down 12.90, but about 6 points off the low. The Nasdaq 100 was down 35.18 at 2612.29, 16 points off its low.
Advance-declines were a little worse than 2 to 1 negative on New York. Up/down volume was 4 1/2 to 1 negative on New York, with total volume of only 570 million shares traded. Nasdaq traded 1.4 billion, and had a 4 to 1 negative volume ratio.
It was a very negative way to end the week, despite the late bounce off key support that they did reach midafternoon.
TheTechTrader.com board, as a result, was mostly lower, but there were some outstanding gainers today. Chelsea Therapeutics International Ltd. (CHTP), which we traded today, was up 38 cents to 1.28, or 41.5%, on 10.5 million shares. Asure Software, Inc. (ASUR) jumped 1.62 to 6.49, or 33%, on 244,000 shares, which is a lot for this stock. Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SUPN) thrust 2.49 to 12.15, or 26%, on 722,000 shares. Synacor, Inc. (SYNC) snatched up 1.74 to 15.45, or 13%, on 2 million shares.
Xyratex Ltd. (XRTX) gained 70 cents to 12.42, Diamond Foods, Inc. (DMND) was up 1.17 to 19.15, and Golar LNG Ltd. (GLNG) jumped 1.69 to 39.00 even. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (GMCR) advanced 97 cents to 24.50.
The Direxion Daily Small Cap Bull 3X Shares (TNA) gave back 1.98 to 55.81, and the Direxion Daily Financial Bull 3X Shares (FAS) lost 1.84 to 87.77. The ProShares UltraShort Silver (ZSL) snapped back 2.71 to 69.27.
Large-cap stocks, however, were still somewhat depressed today, with Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 4.06 to 605.88, 4 1/2 points off the low. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) also dropped 2.01 to 225.05. Google Inc. (GOOG) was down nearly 10, at 585.98, down 9.94, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) 3.88 to 191.41.
SolarWinds, Inc. (SWI) was down 2.67 to 42.61 Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE) lost 1.49 to 48.20.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped down and came down hard all morning, bounced midday, made lower lows in the afternoon, and session lows, and then bounced back nicely in the last hour, or so, but still had substantial losses for the day.
It was a lousy way to end the week, but not a surprise since the oscillators as overboard as they were before today. We were expecting some profit taking to set in.
Let's see how it goes next week.
Good Trading!
Harry