Cisco Rises On Mixed Results

Cisco capped an up day for stocks with better than expected earnings, but lower than expected revenues and a slight revenue warning. But the stock rose after hours when the company said it will comply with an SEC order to certify its earnings.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ surged 5 to 89, and the Nasdaq rose 53 to 1259. The S&P 500 climbed 24 to 859, and the Dow surged 230 to 8274. Volume rose to 1.52 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.54 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 24 to 8 on the NYSE, and 24 to 10 on the Nasdaq.

Also after the close, United Online beat estimates, WebMD beat earnings estimates but missed revenue estimates, and TMP Worldwide and Maxim warned.

During the day, the reasons for the strong rally appeared to be a German asset allocation shift into stocks and speculation that the Fed could start cutting rates again next month. Stocks gave back some of their gains in the final 30 minutes of trading.

Mercury Computer soared 30% despite warning.

Earthlink surged 17% on a stock repurchase announcement.

Qwest fell on bankruptcy fears.

AOL slipped on rumors of more legal troubles.

BEA gained on positive comments from Goldman Sachs.

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 Dow, the S&P and the Nasdaq rallied about as far as could be expected given the bearish “three black crows” candlestick pattern that formed over the previous three trading days (see first three charts below). Another reason for caution here is that the QQQ is sitting right at Max-Pain (the point where most options expire worthless) at 23, with options expiry a week from Friday, so it could be tough to make much headway over the next week and a half. To the downside, we are still looking for minimum targets of 7700 on the Dow, 796 on the S&P, and 1148 on the Nasdaq, the minimum predicted move based on the three black crows. The July 24 lows were 7532 on the Dow, 775 on the S&P and 1192 on the Nasdaq. No doubt some see yesterday as a successful retest of the Nasdaq low, and it is for now, but the chart suggests that the Nasdaq low will be broken eventually. To the upside, resistance on the Nasdaq is 1280-1286 and then a biggie at 1300, the May downtrend line. The S&P faces resistance at 876 and 885-890, and the Dow has resistance at 8388, 8418 and 8500. The HUI, the gold stock index (fourth chart), must hold today’s low of 107.5.

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