(By Harry Boxer) The stock market indices closed with a narrowly mixed day trading in a very narrow range today.
The day started out with a move down, then a sharp rally up, followed by a pullback again, and another midday rally back up that failed at the declining topsline. They rolled over hard to test the morning lows, but held, bounced up hard again only to pull back again, and backed and filled toward the close, and closed narrowly mixed on the day.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 11.54 at 13,047.48. The S&P 500 was down 1.50 cents at 1403.44. The Nasdaq 100 was down 5.08 at 2766.95, 14 points off the high and 6 points off the low.
Advance-declines were about 140 issues lower on New York Stock Exchange, and about 300 lower on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was narrowly higher on New York, with total volume of 660 million shares. Nasdaq traded over 1.4 billion, and had a narrowly lower volume ratio.
TheTechTrader.com board was mostly narrowly mixed, but there were a few outstanding gainers today. In the large-cap sector, Goldman Sachs (GS) was up 3.49 to 109.90, and Sourcefire, Inc. (FIRE) gained 2.09 to 56.37. VirnetX Holding Corp (VHC) jumped 1.60 to 27.94. Repros Therapeutics Inc. (RPRX), one of our swing trades, was a big winner, up 1.19 to 14.23, which was a good gain for this stock.
Bon-Ton Stores Inc. (BONT) was the percent gain leader today, up 2.37 to 12.07, or 25%, on 1.6 million shares. Office Depot, Inc. (ODP) gained 31 cents to 1.92, or 19%, on 35.4 million shares. Low-priced Pluristem Therapeutics, Inc. (PSTI) closed up 42 cents to 4.61, or 10%, on 3.6 million shares. Guidewire Software, Inc. (GWRE) jumped 2.85 to 32.20, or 10%, on 2.7 million shares on earnings.
G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. (GIII) popped 3.29 to 36.17, or 10%, and Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. (IMH) advanced 1.10 to 7.65, or 17%.
Conns Inc. (CONN) was up 1.87 to 25.82, Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation (SWHC) up 65 cents to 8.72, Gulfport Energy Corp. (GPOR) 1.73 to 27.44, Yelp, Inc. (YELP) 1.52 to 25.77, LinkedIn Corporation (LNKD) 5.91 to 113.28, Splunk, Inc. (SPLK) 1.64 to 37.02, and Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. (CTB) 1.04 to 21.41.
On the downside, Apple Inc. (AAPL) was down 4.74 to 670.23, and closed near the session lows. Amazon.comInc. (AMZN) was off 1.66 to 246.22. Google Inc. (GOOG) was nearly flat, down 32 cents to 680.72. Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC) got hammered, losing 4.92 to 64.88 on profit-taking.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were all over the place today, up and down several times during the session, closing narrowly mixed at the end of the day. It's part of a long consolidation that we've been in the last couple weeks.
Let's see how it goes tomorrow.
Good Trading!
Harry