Stocks posted modest gains on Tuesday, but negative analyst comments about Yahoo weighed on Internet stocks.
The ISDEX slipped 5 to 472, a new yearly low, but the Nasdaq rose 13 to 2889. The S&P 500 climbed 3 to 1345, and the Dow added 34 to 10,496. Volume rose to 492 million shares on the NYSE and 790 million shares on the Nasdaq. Decliners led by 13 to 11 the NYSE and 21 to 12 on the Nasdaq. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar and reported earnings. For after hours quotes and news, visit our after hours trading site.
Yahoo plunged 7 1/8 to 41 3/4 after Morgan Stanley Dean Witter analyst Mary Meeker said the company has a 30% probability of an earnings miss over the next three quarters. The company’s problem is a lack of additional revenue streams, she said. Merrill Lynch also said the company could experience a tough winter, but should be a long-term survivor. Merrill analyst Henry Blodget called the Internet shakeout “the end of the beginning,” but predicted that a few companies will survive, among them Yahoo, eBay
, America Online
, and Amazon.com
. He echoed comments that eBay’s business appears to be slowing.
Blodget also made positive comments about Openwave , off 7 13/16 to 71 7/8, the merged entity of Phone.com and Software.com. But the stock declined after issuing guidance that was lower than estimates.
Nortel , up 2 9/16 to 37 13/16, gave infrastructure stocks a boost when it confirmed that its quarter is on track. Sycamore Networks
rose 1 7/16 to 59 3/4 after Wit SoundView added the stock to its Focus List, replacing Nortel.
B2B stocks recovered. Commerce One rose 11/16 to 41 after finding support at 39. Ariba
recouped 4 9/16 to 71 15/16. The stock faces major resistance at 83 1/2.
Broadcom slipped 13/16 to 129 5/16 after settling a trade secret lawsuit with Intel
.
DigitalThink dropped 4 5/8 to 19 5/16 on a Goldman Sachs downgrade.
Ticketmaster Online reached an agreement to combine with the USA Networks
subsidiary Ticketmaster. USAI’s stake in TMCS will increase from 49% to 68%.
VeriSign lost another 7 1/2 to 97 1/8, extending its slide after Register.com
and Baltimore Technologies
teamed up to offer digital certificates to Register.com customers.
Juniper slipped 1 5/8 to 120 1/4, reaching an intraday low of 116 1/2. Technical note: It’s worth taking another look at the Juniper broadening top, broken at 179 1/2 last week. A broadening top is usually a series of three higher highs and two lower lows, but can sometimes have a flat top or bottom, and can sometimes go on to make a fourth high. It is considered a major topping pattern, requiring out-of-control trading conditions. Hence, the pattern’s appearance last month was a bearish sign even before it broke. The predicted minimum move is the distance from the peak (#5) to the previous reaction low (#4), from that lower point. The pattern is not considered broken until the stock closes below the reaction low by 3%. The Juniper pattern was 65 points in size, from the 244 1/2 peak to the 179 1/2 reaction low, predicting a minimum downside move to 114 1/2. The closing break came a week ago at 164 1/2. The stock rebounded to 184 the next day, slightly above the break point, but not quite by 3%, then declined by more than 30% in four trading days.
Some tec
hnical 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 Nasdaq 100 are so far holding at last week’s lows; the Nasdaq set a slightly lower low (2845), while the Nasdaq 100 set a slightly higher low (2745). The move completes the minimum expected downside based on the break of the bearish pennants last week. That level also represents a strong support on the Nasdaq (see chart below). Fear remains at a lower level than we would like to see, and buyers have not been rushing in to buy here, so we’re not convinced that sellers are done just yet. We’ll see what develops from here. The maximum downside based on last week’s breakdown is 2500 (2530-2570 on the Nasdaq).
The ISDEX is barely holding on to its potential broadening bottom. The lower trendline could be redrawn to encompass today’s low of 463, but some damage was done to that line between yesterday and today. 400 should be strong support, if it gets that low. To the upside, there’s a lot of resistance, beginning at 500 and then 560. A break above the top line at 680 would mean a bottom is in, and give the index room to 850 or higher.
We continue to watch the S&P 500’s 1994 logarithmic trendline at 1369, which we closed below for the second time on a weekly basis last week. If we close below that line by more than 2%, or 1335, we may have seen the end of the bull market. The index has repeatedly come close to a major technical breakdown over the last month or so, but has somehow escaped from the abyss each time. The S&P turned up at 1333 today.
The Dow broke a small head and shoulders top yesterday, with downside potential to 10,400 or lower. The index will continue to have a bullish posture as long as it stays above 10,369. First resistance is 10,525, which has capped advances in the last two days, then 10,600, 10,850 (the old diamond apex), and critical resistance is 11,000, where the index has failed five times.
Special report: For a free introduction to technical chart patterns and an overview of this year’s action in the stock market, visit http://www.internetstockreport.com/guest/article/0,1785,2571_500051,00.html.
