Stock Market Reverses After Intel Warns....Classic....

By: Jack_Steiman

Intel Corporation (INTC) has been the source of many big reversals in the stock market over its career on Wall Street. Sometimes it has set the top of the market and at other times it has set the bottom, at least for the short-term. Today we saw it put in the short-term bottom.

The market had been gapping up on a GDP Report that was poor, but not quite as poor as had been projected. After being up for the first thirty minutes the market was waiting to hear the words of Fed Governor Bernanke and his wisdom about Main Street. Would he at least give some hope about things, or would he say next to nothing new about how poorly things were going economically. He said nothing the market really wanted to hear, and thus, a big move lower took place.

At the same time, Intel decided it was time to warn the world that things have indeed slowed down as many had been saying it would. Prior to this announcement the stock had been absolutely slaughtered. No other way to say it. Near 23 down to the 18's. The stock was halted. Oh boy, here comes the cherry on the already slaughtered cake. Not to be. It opened higher as the bad news had been priced in and the market took off higher following their lead. Intel had set the bottom. The warning was not all that terrible to be honest. 11.5 billion to 11 billion and 67% margins to 66%. Slowing, but with a 20% haircut over the past several weeks, the bulls took advantage and bought it up. Nothing to get excited about yet, especially for Intel, which is still completely dead and going nowhere exciting. For the market it could mean much more.

What more could it mean, you ask. Well, this sort of coincides with my late message yesterday when I wrote that three things bothered me from the bearish perspective short-term. One being the UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury ProShares (TBT), which was grossly oversold and needed to bounce. Two was the oversold nature of the 60-minute charts and the positive divergence ready to set up on the MACD. Three was the oversold nature of the daily charts with stochastic's buried, and RSI's approaching 30, not to mention some deeply compressed MACD's. A nice triple play that suggested it was possible that the time was nearing for a counter-trend rally to begin.

All the bad news from Bernanke and Intel couldn't keep this puppy lower. When bad news gets bought you have to step up and take notice. It makes you wonder about how much bad news is cooked in to the pie. Apparently, lots for the short-term. It doesn't mean the longer-term picture has changed at all. It does likely mean that the short-term has and that further upside is quite likely short-term. Nothing to get aggressively long about, but enough to take on some exposure. We haven't yet taken out key resistance, but we're close. I think there's a good chance we will shortly.

The key resistance I am speaking of is 1063 on the S&P 500 and 2160 on the Nasdaq. These are strong gap levels of resistance. If they get taken out, the job remains tough for the bulls. The 20-day exponential moving average on the Nasdaq is at 2190. There's also trend line before that at 2180. Beyond the 20-day is the 50-day exponential moving average at 2221. Of course, we haven't even taken out the first key resistance at 2160, yet so easy on the feel-good attitude if you're a bull.

So many pieces of overhead resistance with gaps and trend lines along with moving averages. A very tough road ahead, especially with all the bad news out there. No, it hasn't gone away. It's on vacation. With today's outside reversal sticks on the daily charts when compared to yesterday's down stick, the market should try higher. I think the initial levels of resistance will soon be taken out. Every step beyond that will get tougher and tougher. With the oscillators also moving well with price today, I think this market has some legs higher in it.

With the oscillators still favorable I think there's a chance that the near-term 1040 bottom is it for a while with regards to aggressive down side action. It won't be an easy ride for the bulls, and once the oscillators stop advancing with price, the down side should come back. Once it does, though, will we understand whether it's coming back for good or just visiting. The future is cloudy and unknown. Don't worry about it too much. Let it unfold. We'll navigate as the charts tell us to. I would NOT be getting aggressively long just because some type of near-term bottom seems in. Slow and easy as always in this type of difficult environment.

Peace,

Jack

Jack Steiman is author of SwingTradeOnline.com ( www.swingtradeonline.com ). Former columnist for TheStreet.com, Jack is renowned for calling major shifts in the market, including the market bottom in mid-2002 and the market top in October 2007.

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