Stocks Continue Advance, But Volume Falls

By Paul Shread | February 12, 2002
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Stocks continued their rebound on Monday, but volume fell again on the advance.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 2 to 160, and the Nasdaq gained 27 to 1846. The S&P 500 rose 15 to 1111, and the Dow surged 140 to 9884. Volume declined to 1.15 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.56 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by 21 to 10 on the NYSE, and 20 to 15 on the Nasdaq.

After the close, Nortel announced the resignation of its CFO and an investigation into his trading practices. Register.com missed revenue estimates.

During the day, Microsoft rose almost 1% despite a Barron's article questioning the company's valuation.

Ciena rose 10% on an intelligent optical networking deal with AT&T.

Applied Materials rose 6% ahead of its earnings report tomorrow night. Hewlett-Packard reports Wednesday, and Dell Thursday.

Handspring soared 34% on bullish comments from SoundView.

Qualcomm continued to rebound despite accounting concerns, up 10% on the day.

Some technical comments on the market: Note: To see the charts in the text email newsletter, click on the internetstockreport.com story link at the top of the newsletter.

Another nice bounce today, but volume has fallen the whole way up, which indicates that it may just be a countertrend bounce. The S&P 500 (first chart) closed right at resistance at 1112; 1114-1117, right above this level, is also tough resistance. To the downside, 1110 and 1098 are first supports. The S&P 100 (second chart) may be forming a complex head-and-shoulders top, with critical support just below 550. That index also formed a broadening top at its recent highs, similar to the S&P 500. That lower trendline or neckline on the OEX is critical support for the market here; the index could bounce to 571-573 before turning back down. The Dow (third chart) could face tough resistance in the 9917-9940 range tomorrow; 10,000 looms large just above that. 9800 is important support for tomorrow. The Nasdaq (fourth chart) had unimpressive internals today and barely cleared 1830 resistance; 1860-1880 is likely to cap this rally. 1828-1830 is first support, and then 1815.

Special report: For a free introduction to technical chart patterns, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.