The stock market started out very weak on Monday, but managed to end the day with small gains in the Nasdaq and S&P 500.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 2 to 144, and the Nasdaq climbed 7 to 1695. The S&P 500 rose 6 to 1099, and the Dow slipped less than a point to 9605. Volume fell to 1.2 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.6 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 19 to 11 on the NYSE, and 22 to 14 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, Ariba surged on a deal with Home Depot, Newport
fell on an earnings warning, and Xilinx
fell after reaffirming estimates but announcing a $65-$85 million charge.
During the day, Microsoft rose 2.10 to 57.50 on news that it is readying a proposal aimed at settling the government’s antitrust case against the company.
GoTo.com rose .30 to 15.25 after announcing it will change its name to Overture and its ticker symbol to OVER as of October 8 to get rid of that dreaded dot-com moniker.
Check Point rose 2.48 to 33.05 after affirming its outlook.
Avici fell .78 to 2 on an earnings warning, but Qwest
climbed 1.76 to 19.90 on its earnings warning and plans to cut 4,000 jobs and CapEx spending.
RF Micro Devices climbed .58 to 22.89 after raising forward guidance.
AOL surged 2.13 to 34.41 after making an offer for AT&T’s broadband unit.
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
Unfortunately, there were no definitive signs of a reversal today. The Nasdaq, Dow and S&P 500 all formed candlesticks – dojis or hammers – that could be the start of a rally if there’s follow-through buying tomorrow. The put-call ratio was short-term bullish, closing above 1.0. But everything else seems to fall into the negative category. The economically sensitive indices that should be leading rallies – the semiconductor index, the banking index, the cyclical index and the transportation index – all ended the day down. The internals were very weak, with down volume leading up volume on the NYSE and barely positive on the Nasdaq. The picture could all change tomorrow, but at the moment it points to a weak rally. The Nasdaq (first chart) continues to leave unfilled that annoying gap from April 4 at 1639-1700 (today’s low was 1669). The index is oversold enough to bounce from here, but a trip back to fill that gap is likely at some point. The index doesn’t have much in the way of resistance until 1770. The S&P 500 (second chart) set a new intraday low today to go with its new closing low set Friday, a negative. The 1058 level could provide some support below today’s low of 1073. 1100 and 1125 is resistance. The Dow (third chart) made a fairly good test of its March-April low off 9100-9500 today, but the bounce was unimpressive. Heck, all it takes is buying in 3M to hold the Dow up. 9869-9920 is first resistance, and a close below 9389 would be bearish.
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