(By Harry Boxer) The stock market had a topsy-turvy day today, with the indices closing mixed near the flatline.
The day started out with a gap up, back and forth consolidation, which held support, and then led to new multi-week rally highs on the Nasdaq 100, reaching 2742.83. However, the S&P 500 could not take out the early morning highs when it snapped back to 1409 1/2. The high was 1410.03. They then rolled over in a 3-wave decline, which accelerated into the close. Only in the last 5 – 10 minutes did they snap back to put the Dow in the plus column.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 2.71 at 13,172.14, about 30 points off its low, which occurred in the last few minutes. The S&P 500 was down only .18 at 1403.93, only 7 points off its high and 3 points off the low. The Nasdaq 100 was down .89 at 2727.79, 15 points off the high and 6 points off the low.
Advance-declines were slightly negative by 41 issues on New York Stock Exchange, but by 600 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was slightly declining over advancing volume on New York, with total volume of a very light 545 million shares. Nasdaq traded over 1.55 billion, and had a 3 to 2 negative, declining volume over advancing volume.
TheTechTrader.com board was mixed, but there were some outstanding issues. Leading the way for Nasdaq 100 was Google Inc. (GOOG), up 8.65 to 668.66, although that was 4 points off the high. Apple Inc. (AAPL) managed to eke out 1.69 to 631.69.
An outstanding stock on our board today was Cobalt International Energy, Inc. (CIE), which we traded, up 2.85 to 23.63, or nearly 14%, on 6.2 million shares.
VIVUS Inc. (VVUS) was among the strong diet drug today, up 1.52 to 23.24, or 7%, on 4.6 million shares. Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ARNA) was up 1.02 to 8.26, or 14%, on 26.3 million shares. Michael Kors Holdings (KORS), which we traded today, was up 6.98 to 49.33, or 161/2%, on 18.5 million shares.
Thinly traded, low-priced Cleantech Solutions International, Inc. (CLNT) was up 92 cents to 3.38, or 37%.
Other gainers of note included Velti Plc (VELT), up 84 cents to 7.88, or 12%, on 5.9 million shares. Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. (ANW) gained 67 cents to 6.88, or 11%, on nearly 600 thousand shares.
ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF (UVXY), which we traded today, was up 55 cents to 5.54, or 11%, on 16 million shares.
Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (EL) was up 5.12 to 60.13, Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. (NSM) up 2.29 to 27.60, Monster Beverage Corporation (MNST) 5.32 to 58.59, Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc. (PCRX) 1.43 to 17.01, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 1.85 to 61.76, and Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC) 1.39 to 59.14 were among other point-plus gainers today.
On the downside, point-plus losers included Facebook, Inc. (FB), which got hit for 1.22 to 20.38, and continues to be incredibly weak, and SodaStream International Ltd. (SODA) was down 1.18 to 37.94.
The ultra-shorts and long were all fractionally changed. We'll see what that means. We did get a breakout and a pullback retest off the lows late in the session, but they need to hold. So we'll see whether they get an up-side follow-through or downside break of support tomorrow, which may be a critical day for the market.
Good Trading!
Harry