Intel, Jobs Data Boost Stocks

Stocks got a boost Friday from a better than expected warning from Intel and a better than expected August unemployment report.

The Nasdaq surged 44 to 1295, the S&P 500 rose 14 to 893, and the Dow gained 143 to 8427. Volume fell to 1.19 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.31 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 23 to 8 on the NYSE, and 22 to 10 on the Nasdaq.

Intel gained back all of yesterday’s 6% loss and then some after guiding revenue estimates to the lower half of previous guidance. The company also maintained CapEx guidance, boosted Novellus , Applied Materials and KLA-Tencor 7% each.

But Cypress Semi fell 7% on a warning, and National Semi hit a new 52-week low.

Microsoft gained 4% on bullish comments from Bernstein.

CDW surged 12% after raising guidance.

McData gained 1.5% after reaffirming guidance.

Cisco lagged with a 2% gain, coming off its best levels on negative analyst comments.

SAP slipped on a downgrade.

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.

A nice rally today, but the move came on lower volume, and was accompanied by an extremely low Nasdaq TRIN reading that was more suggestive of a top than the beginning of a sustained move up. In the intraday charts (first three charts below), the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq may all be forming bearish broadening patterns, which could result in a continuation move down. That kind of volatility – new highs intermingled with new lows – almost never occurs at bottoms. Resistance is 8500 on the Dow, 900-907 on the S&P, and 1305-1320 on the Nasdaq. It would take a strong move above those levels on Monday to negate those bearish patterns. In the daily charts (charts four through six), support is 1280, 1275, 1263 and 1250 on the Nasdaq, 875 on the S&P, and 8300 and 8200 on the Dow. The SOX (seventh chart), the semiconductor index, finally broke its steep recent downtrend. Next resistance is 300 and then 312. The first three days next week may also be volatile because of nervousness about the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

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