Dell Warning Weighs On Stocks

Stocks traded lower Monday on an earnings warning from Dell Computer, the latest tech giant to warn of lower than expected results.

The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ added 2 to 419, and the Nasdaq lost 28 to 2741. The S&P 500 slipped 7 to 1335, and the Dow fell 66 to 10,521. Volume declined to 530 million shares on the NYSE, and 1.01 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led by 13 to 12 on the NYSE, and by a few shares on the Nasdaq. The Leading Economic Indicators report was the latest to show significant economic weakness. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan testifies on Capitol Hill on Thursday, a week before the Fed’s next meeting. 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.

Openwave , up 3 13/16 to 52 13/16, continued its strong run in advance of its earnings report tonight. Analysts expect a 3-cent loss. Other companies reporting tonight include Vitesse , up 1 3/8 to 67 1/16, Texas Instruments , off 1 5/8 to 48 11/16, and FreeMarkets , down 5/16 to 24 13/16. Storage giant EMC , off 2 3/4 to 74 9/16, reports tomorrow morning.

InfoSpace fell 1 9/16 to 7 11/32 after announcing a management reshuffling and a deal with Microsoft .

MarchFirst soared 1 15/32 to 3 11/32 on a CS First Boston Buy rating, based on the company’s recent announcement of a $150 million investment from Francisco Partners.

E.piphany fell 7 1/2 to 29 5/8 after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter lowered earnings estimates on the company. JDS Uniphase lost 2 1/8 to 58 11/16 on a Wit SoundView downgrade.

Drugstore.com slipped 1/2 to 2 1/8 despite beating estimates by 10 cents with a 45-cent loss.

Some technical comments on the market: Note: We are now including 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 Nasdaq and S&P 500 broke down out of their smaller rising channels today (first and second charts), following up on last week’s reversal signals. However, we still expect any pullback to be modest, perhaps to the gaps at 2618.55 on the Nasdaq and 2470.72 on the Nasdaq 100, and certainly no lower than 2450 on the Nasdaq, the lower channel boundary in that chart.

As we wrote about recently, the Nasdaq broke its 4 1/2-month downtrend recently (first chart). But if you look at the same line on a logarithmic scale (second chart), plotting the line by percentage moves instead of point moves), the index barely broke its downtrend Friday and then reversed.

The S&P 100 was rejected Friday at its September downtrend line (first chart), a sign of weakness in the largest stocks. The index didn’t even come close to its log downtrend line (second chart). The bulls still need to do more to take control of this market away from the bears.

The Dow conti

nues to be the one big trouble spot for the market. So far, it’s holding above its December bottom, but the extreme rotation from the old industrials into the Nasdaq is a warning sign for the market as a whole. Critical support is 10,300 on the Dow, and a close above 11,007 would be bullish, particularly if the Dow Transports can get back above 3000 and stay there.

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