Late Rally Sharply Reduces Stock Market Losses

Stock-Markets / Stock Index Trading May 05, 2009 - 06:39 PM GMT

The markets had a slightly lower session today in what looked like a consolidation day, as support was tested severely on two occasions and held, resulting in a late sharp rally back on the indices over the last hour, sharply reducing the losses.

The day started out with a move down. The indices tested support, bounced around for a couple hours during mid-day and could not get back through resistance, and then had a sharp sell-off in mid-afternoon that severely retested the early morning lows, but they ended up holding those support levels. That resulted in a late sharp snapback that actually took the NDX to nominal new session highs, while the SPX failed to confirm at that point, and they pulled back just slightly into the close.

Net on the day the Dow was down just 16.09 and closed above 8400 at 8410.65, the S&P 500 down 3.44 to 903.80, and the Nasdaq 100 down 4.15 to 423.81. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 3.61 to 268.70.

Advance-declines were negative by 311 issues on New York and by 250 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 8 to 7 positive on New York with 1 1/2 billion traded. Nasdaq traded 2 1/2 billion and had a 13 to 12 negative volume ratio.

So, it was a narrower, but somewhat volatile session intraday. There was a crack in the armor in the financials, as stocks like Wells Fargo (WFC), down 98 cents, and JP Morgan (JPM), down 97 cents, were mixed with Bank of America (BAC), up 46 cents, and Goldman Sachs (GS), up 1.04. So a mixed picture in the financials, and perhaps they are getting tried and long in the tooth as they're really had strong runs in the last two months.

TheTechTrader.com board mostly higher. Leading the way was Mosaic (MOS), up 2.05 to 46.27, and Amazon (AMZN), up 2.13 to 81.90. Those were the only stocks on our board up more than 2 points.

Research in Motion (RIMM) was up 1.10, and American Italian Pasta (AIPC) up 1.32.

The ultrashort ETFs were up slightly today, with the UltraShort Financial ProShares (SKF) up 1.29 to 49.19, UltraShort Real Estate ProShares (SRS) up 1.22 to 22.36, and the FXP up 80 cents to 16.88.

On the downside, the only one point-plus loser was SunPower (SPWR), off 1.68 to 28.50.

Cree Inc. (CREE) lost 82 cents to 28.10, and the iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index (FXI) dropped 86 cents to 34.30.

There were small minor fractional changes in the FAS/FAZ complex, with the Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) up 24 cents, the Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) down 35 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the rising moving averages and trendllines remain unscathed, as today's action on the hourly charts appears to be nothing more than bull flags or orderly consolidations ahead of potentially higher prices.

Despite the fact that the oscillators are overbought, today's action will partly offset some of the recent excesses and pull the oscillators back to less overbought ranges. But the grind higher continues, with support continuing to hold. I'm still looking for a potential high in this timeframe, although I've been saying that for the last two weeks now and the market continues to press ahead.

Good trading!

Harry

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