Stock Market Pauses Ahead of Tuesdays Presidential Election

Stock-Markets / US Stock Markets Nov 03, 2008 - 07:05 PM GMT

We got basically what we thought we would on Monday -- a quieter session, lower volume, and slightly lower prices. There was a little bit of afternoon volatility, but for the most part the indices opened mixed, worked their way sharply higher initially, and then went into a couple-hour consolidation. It looked like that they maybe would try to break out, but when they failed to break through on two different occasions they then rolled over in the afternoon. Then they retested Friday afternoon's lows and the rising trendlines, bounced sharply, but in the last 10 minutes once again slipped sharply lower and gave back half the late rally, closing negative on the session.

However, net on the day the Dow was down just 5.18 today, the S&P 500 down 2.45 and the Nasdaq 100 down just 0.03, nearly unchanged on the day. That was about 12 points off the low and 12 points off the high, so mid-range, in a much narrower, much quieter day.

Volume was about 1 billion shares on New York and 1 3/4 billion on Nasdaq. The plurality was slightly to the downside on volume on New York and slightly to the plus side on Nasdaq. Advance-declines were 17 to 13 positive on New York and 16 to 12 positive on Nasdaq. It was a marginal day today ahead of tomorrow's election.

But TheTechTrader.com board had some nice movers today, with Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) leading the way at 39.34, up 5.20. SunPower (SPWR) at 44.08 was up 5.02. United (UAUA) at 16.59 was up 2.03 on a drop in crude oil. Continental Airlines (CAL) gained 1.53 as well. DryShips (DRYS) advanced 2.69 to 21.94 today on a strong earnings report.

Canadian Solar (CSIQ) in the junior solar group was up 1.22, and Solarfun (SOLF) at 8.24 up 2.14, a strong session there.

Among the ETFs, one outstanding one today was the EWZ Brazilian ETF, at 38.79, up 1.13.

On the downside, the USO dropped 2.94 on the drop in crude oil, and the DIG was down 1.50. Afternoon weakness brought the agriculture stocks down from their early peaks, with Mosaic (MOS) down 2.11 and CF down 1.52.

Other than that, mostly fractional changes, but there were some of the large fractional changes on the plus side today. Excel Maritime (EXM) gained 89 cents, and portfolio position Qualcor (QCOR) up 60 cents to 8.34, a new 13-year high on more than 2 million shares. That's strong volume for that stock. Portfolio position Sequenom (SQNM) was up 73 cents, and EBS got as high as 20.29 before closing at 18.47, still up 46 cents today.

Low-priced A-Power Energy (APWR) at 6.01 was up 34 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices failed on 2-3 occasions to break through the 1345-47 zone on the NDX and the 973-75 zone on the S&P 500. That's the level we'll be keeping an eye on tomorrow.

On the downside, support at the 1320-22 area on the NDX and the 957-59 zone on the S&P 500 are the levels we'll be watching as well on election day.

Good trading!

Harry

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