Mixed, Choppy Day Makes It Tough To Gauge Next Move
The stock market indices were choppy in the morning, narrow in the afternoon, and then tried to rally late in the session. They rolled over into the close at the afternoon lows and mixed on the session right where they opened.
The day started out with the indices mixed. They tried to rally, and then came down sharply to test support that held. They bounced, retested, and then went to the session highs for the day on the Nasdaq 100 at 2790 just around midday. At that point, with the new high on the NDX, and the S&P 500 not making one, they rolled back into the afternoon and tested, held a couple times, and then tried a late rally that failed, and rolled over hard into the close.
Net on the day, the Dow was down 21.68 at 13,102.99, about 45 points off its high. The S&P 500 was down 1.14 at 1409.30, only 4 points off its high. The Nasdaq 100 was up 14 cents at 2782.69, 8 points off the high and 10 points off the low.
Advance-declines were 16 to 12 positive on New York Stock Exchange, and about 3 to 2 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was slightly lower on New York, with total volume of a very light 500 million shares. Nasdaq traded over 1.3 billion, and had a slightly lower volume ratio.
TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed. There were some gainers, in particular Nasdaq 100 with Google Inc. (GOOG) up 8.03 to 677.25 and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) up 2.19 to 246.11. Apple Inc. (AAPL) lost 88 cents to 674.80, 2 points off the high, and 4 points off the low. That was a fairly narrow range for Apple today.
There were some nice percent gainers in the low-priced sector. Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc. (PPHM) was up 50 cents to 2.37, or 27%, on 5.4 million shares. Discovery Laboratories Inc. (DSCO) gained 41 cents to 3.22, or 14 1/2%, on 4.6 million shares. Alexza Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ALXA) advanced 40 cents to 4.66, or 11 3/4%, on 1.4 million shares.
Other gainers of note included Movado Group, Inc. (MOV), which jumped 5.25 to 35.36, or 17 1/2%, on 3.4 million shares on earnings. Molycorp, Inc. (MCP) advanced 1.23 to 10.75, or 13%, on 18.6 million shares. Lexmark International Inc. (LXK) closed up 2.61 to 21.62, or 13 3/4%, on 13.2 million shares on positive news.
In addition, Net 1 Ueps Technologies Inc. (UEPS) jumped 1.07 to 10.17, Sanchez Energy Corporation (SN) 1.48 to 19.05, Sanderson Farms, Inc. (SAFM) 3.46 to 44.05, Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. (UBNT) 87 cents to 11.39, and Digital Generation, Inc. (DGIT) 83 cents to 11.02.
Liquidity Services, Inc. (LQDT) rose 3.50 to 51.54, Stratasys Inc. (SSYS) 3.96 to 65.96, Acme Packet, Inc. (APKT) 88 cents to 17.88, and PVH Corp. (PVH) 4.34 to 92.83. They were among the big gainers on our board today.
On the downside, the point-plus losers was Pharmacyclics Inc. (PCYC), down 1.12 to 66.67 after a strong recent run.
Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were very choppy and volatile in the morning, settled down a little bit in the afternoon, tried to breakout but couldn’t, and rolled over into the close to close down on the blue chips, and slightly higher on Nasdaq 100. It was a very mixed, choppy day today, and tough to gauge where we’re going.
We’ll see whether the late sell-off has any implications for further downside or not.
Good Trading!
Harry