Blue Chips Battered Again

Blue chip stocks were battered again on Monday, but tech stocks fared somewhat better for a change.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ fell 2 to 127, and the Nasdaq lost 6 to 1656. The S&P 500 dropped 10 to 1065, and the Dow fell 90 to 9819. Volume declined to 1.26 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.82 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 17 to 14 on the NYSE, and 21 to 14 on the Nasdaq.

After the close, FreeMarkets , Genesis Microchip , Macrovision , Looksmart , CSG and GlobeSpan Virata beat estimates, ONI and JNI met estimates, and Register.com missed.

During the day, NVIDIA soared 16% after raising guidance.

Microsoft continued to hold 51.50 support, but EMC , AOL and Check Point made new 52-week lows.

Qualcomm closed below $30 for the first time in three years. Next strong support is $25.

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.

The market continues to head down without so much as a bounce since the S&P 100 (first chart) broke critical 547 support last week, but the time is closing in on the end-of-the-month/start-of-the-month rally period. Particularly if tomorrow finishes down, the market should head up on Wednesday, since the first of the month has accounted for most of the gains in the market in recent years. The Nasdaq (second chart), the S&P (third chart) and the Dow (fourth chart) are all entering some pretty good support zones: 1619-1627 on the Nasdaq, 1052-1054 on the S&P 500, and 9600-9700 on the Dow are pretty good bets to look for a bounce. That said, that S&P 100 chart looks like it has another 6%-7% of downside, and a strict measurement of the Nasdaq’s two tops this year comes up with a target of 1550. But nothing happens in a straight line, and the market is oversold enough here for a good bounce, if only for a day or two. To the upside, 547 on the S&P 100, 1098 on the S&P 500 and 1696 on the Nasdaq are the levels to beat for a more lasting rally. The one big negative today is that the Dow and S&P 500 both broke declining supports, which is pretty bearish and could lead to a waterfall down. The other troubling aspect is the put-call ratio, which closed at a low 0.77 today. The VIX (fifth chart), the options volatility index, is testing its 200-day moving average, an important level above which some steep sell-offs have occurred.

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

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