Tue May 5th 2009
Late Rally Sharply Reduces Lossesby Harry Boxer,
www.TheTechTrader.comLate Rally Sharply Reduces Losses
By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (
www.thetechtrader.com)
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 theyFor more of Harry Boxer, sign up for a FREE 15-Day Trial to his Real-Time Technical Trading Diary. Or sign up for a Free 30-Day Trial to his Top Charts of the Week service.
