Day Trading with Hary Boxer

The stock market indices had a very strong afternoon move, particularly the Nasdaq 100, which closed in the plus column. The Dow and S&P 500 were not able to make it all the way back, although the S&P 500 did jump 9 points off its low, and still it was down on the session along with the Dow.

The day started out with a gap down. They snapped back to support, formed some wedges, and rolled over, at which point they looked like they were going to collapse. They held support around the 2627 area on the NDX and jumped to 2652 just before the close. The S&P 500 jumped from 1398 to 1406 and closed at the afternoon highs going away. A very strong, late surge in a 5-wave advance in the afternoon took the indices way back up, led by Apple Inc. (AAPL), up 18.03 to 589.53, reaching 590 at one point in the day, and is now 85 points off its low.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 42.31 at 12,967.37. The S&P 500 was down 2.86 to 1406.29. The Nasdaq 100 closed up 12.08 to 2,651.67.

TheTechTrader.com board had many other gainers today. Low-priced stocks took over. China BAK Battery, Inc. (CBAK) jumped 93 cents to 2.65, or 54%, and Oclaro, Inc. (OCLR) popped 43 cents to 2.09, or 26%, on 1.9 million shares in a late rally.

Other gainers of note included Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. (IMH), up 1.88 to 14.21, or 15%. Celsion Corp. (CLSN), one of our swing trades, spiked 1.14 to 7.80, or 17%, on 4.3 million shares. 3D Systems Corp. (DDD) advanced 4.81 to 46.55, or 11 1/2%, on 1.5 million shares.

In addition, Nam Tai Electronics, Inc. (NTE) was up 1.40 to 15.60, or 10%, on 1.9 million shares. Pandora Media, Inc. (P) gained 74 cents to 8.58, or 10%, on 5.7 million shares.

Smart Balance, Inc (SMBL) was up 94 cents to 11.61, Stratasys Inc. (SSYS) up 5.19 to 75.97, Restoration Hardware Holdings, Inc. (RH) 2.50 to 37.99, Facebook, Inc. (FB) 1.94 to 25.94, on 123 million shares, and Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc. (SRPT) 1.66 to 31.01.

On the downside, the only point-plus loser on our board today was Google Inc. (GOOG), which got hammered for 6.82 to 661.15.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices gapped down, bounced back and made lower lows by midmorning, only to turn around in a 5-wave advance the rest of the session, and moved back to session highs on the NDX and afternoon highs on the S&P 500.

The indices had very good closes despite the early weakness. We’ll see how it goes on tomorrow.

Good Trading!

Harry