Cisco surged after hours after saying that its business is stabilizing. Stocks slipped during the day on news that Fed rate cuts may be nearing an end.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ slipped 1 to 166, and the Nasdaq declined 17 to 1842. The S&P 500 lost 3 to 1162, and the Dow fell 47 to 10,229. Volume fell to 985 million shares on the NYSE, and 1.42 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 16 to 14 on the NYSE, and 21 to 15 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 close, Cisco surged more than a point after announcing a reorganization and saying it is beginning to see signs of stabilization in its business. It’s not clear how the statement differed from the company’s outlook a few weeks ago, but investors bought the news anyway. The Nasdaq futures rose more than 20 points on the news, and telecom equipment and networking stocks traded higher.
During the day, the minutes of the June Fed meeting caused investors to worry that rate cuts may be coming to and end. At the same time, the Fed said the economy was weaker than expected.
Lucent slipped .03 to 6.65 after saying that the company will return to profitability next year, but that long-term growth will only be 10%-15%.
Openwave and Nokia
lost ground on negative analyst comments.
Ciena rose .78 to 18.22 on news that it will be added to the S&P 500. Synopsys
plunged 4.30 to 46.85 on an earnings warning.
eBay fell 1.32 to 55.59 despite bullish comments from Goldman Sachs.
Microsoft fell 1.54 to 59.12, closing below $60 for the first time since April 10.
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
The Dow broke down out of a bear flag on the intraday charts after the release of the Fed minutes today (first chart), but found support at 10,220. The 10,120-10,220 level continues to provide support for the Dow (second chart), and the 10,300 level is key resistance. The Nasdaq broke down out of a steep uptrend in the intraday chart (third chart). 1830-1840 is first support, 1860 is first resistance, then 1880-1900 (fourth chart). The S&P 500 (fifth chart) faces a whole lot of resistance at 1170-1175 tomorrow, and critical support is 1156. One negative on an otherwise quiet day was the CBOE put-call ratio, which hit the ridiculously complacent level of .18 on the open this morning, which is a level seen at tops rather than bottoms. The only fear investors have is of missing the next rally. However, without much news coming for the next week or so (with the exception of next Wednesday’s GDP revision), the market could have an up bias into the end of the month.
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.
