Applied Materials and BEA Systems rose after hours Tuesday on better-than-expected earnings, capping a down day for tech stocks on a hopeful note.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ slipped 2 to 188, and the Nasdaq lost 17 to 1964. The S&P 500 declined 4 to 1187, and the Dow slipped 3 at 10,412. Volume rose to 963 million shares on the NYSE, and 1.23 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 18 to 12 on the NYSE, but decliners led 18 to 17 on the Nasdaq. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar at http://www.wsrn.com/apps/earnings/internet.xpl and reported earnings at http://www.wsrn.com/apps/earnings/ireported.xpl. For after hours quotes and news, visit our after hours trading site at http://www.afterhourstrading.com.
After the bell, Applied Materials , BEA Systems
and NVIDIA
rose on better than expected results, and Network Appliance
climbed after matching estimates.
During the day, AOL Time Warner dropped 3.34 to 39.65 on layoff and earnings concerns.
Advanced Micro fell 1.11 to 15.50 after IBM said it will discontinue use of AMD processors in North America. The company’s price war with Intel
continues to unnerve investors.
New that Microsoft’s Xbox may be delayed due to an Intel motherboard flaw weighed on Microsoft, NVIDIA and Intel.
Openwave lost 2.37 to 18.51 on earnings concerns.
IBM rose .34 to 106.20 despite news that it is seeing a slowdown in its microelectronics business.
Dell , off .44 to 26.58, was downgraded by AG Edwards based on valuation concerns.
Siebel slipped .95 to 28 on a Thomas Weisel report of business weakness.
Some technical comments on the market: Note: We include charts in the technical market commentary. If you can’t get the charts via the e-mail newsletter version, try this link: http://www.afterhourstrading.com/column.html
Not the prettiest of days, with the indexes giving up nice gains and reversing to close down. With sentiment readings still too bullish, it’s not surprising that the market keeps getting rejected at resistance. The Nasdaq (first chart) continues to look interesting. The index retraced to the neckline of an inverted head-and-shoulders bottom at about 1965, an important support. The index broke down out of an uptrend today (the black channel), but could be forming a bull flag (the blue lines). A move above 1975 tomorrow could target the Nasdaq’s main downtrend line around 2025 (second chart). First resistance after 1975 is 2000. A move below 1950 would just about finish the Nasdaq’s uptrend. The Dow (third chart) continues to struggle at its broken March uptrend and its May downtrend lines. A move above 10,500 on the Dow would be a big plus, and a move below 10,360 would be a negative. The S&P 500 (fourth chart) ran into 1200 resistance today, and 1165-1175 is critical support.
Special report: For a free introduction to technical chart patterns and an overview of last year’s action in the stock market, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.
