Bears roamed Wall Street on Monday, sending the Dow and Nasdaq to triple-digit losses. Three stocks fell for every one that rose.
The ISDEX lost 25 to 763, while the Nasdaq dropped 108 to 3726, in the process breaking its uptrend from May. The S&P 500 fell 21 to 1444, while the Dow lost 118 to 10,808. Volume declined to 956 million shares on the NYSE and 1.61 billion on the Nasdaq. Breadth was abysmal. Decliners swamped advancers by a whopping 22 to 6 on the NYSE and 29 to 10 on the Nasdaq. Only four of 50 ISDEX stocks posted a gain on the day. For earnings reports, visit our earnings calendar and reported earnings. For after hours quotes and news, visit our new after hours trading site.
America Online gained 1/4 to 55 9/16, but slipped from a high of 57 11/16 after the Wall Street Journal’s Web site reported that the company’s merger with Time Warner
may be blocked by the European Commission.
Allaire fell 7 1/4 to 10 1/4 after warning of a third-quarter 5-20 cent loss instead of a 7-cent profit. The company, which has been sliding since 38 at the start of the month, told Internet Stock Report last week that there was no reason to account for the stock’s decline. Four analysts have made positive comments about the company during the slide. For more on the story, click here.
Net2Phone fell 7 7/16 to 26 3/8 after trading as high as 37 on news of an alliance with Cisco Systems
, off 2 1/2 to 60 1/4.
Digital Island , off 1 11/16 to 21 13/16, filed a patent infringement suite against Akamai
, off 9/16 to 60 9/16, returning a similar lawsuit filed by Akamai against Digital Island last week.
PSINet continued to lose favor after an earnings warning last week, off 1 1/2 to 10 1/4 on a Salomon Smith Barney downgrade.
Evoke Communications managed to gain 1/8 to 8 3/8 after announcing that it would provide live audio streaming for eBay’s new live auctions feature. eBay
fell 1 1/2 to 65 15/16. Yahoo
slipped 5/8 to 105 1/4 after trading as low as 102 3/8; the stock has twice bottomed at the 99 1/2-99 3/4 level.
MotherNature.com slipped 1/64 to 11/16 after announcing plans to reduce its workforce by 20%.
Autobytel.com slipped 3/16 to 4 11/16 after pre-announcing results that some analysts took as beating estimates, but not Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, which downgraded the stock to Buy from Strong Buy on lower-than-expected revenue projections.
Stamps.com fell 51/64 to 6 5/16 after being sued by Pitney Bowes for patent infringement.
Some technical comments on the market: The Nasdaq Composite (3810) and the Nasdaq 100 (3610) broke their May uptrend lines this morning, a worrisome sign. However, the Nasdaq is at an interesting juncture right now (3700): the old October 1998 uptrend line, broken only once when the index went to 3042 in May. Not a bad place for the bulls to try to muster a rally. Below 3700, next strong support is likely to be 3521, where the index turned around in August. If the Nasdaq breaks 3500, the final bottom is likely to be 3000 or lower. To the upside, the broken May uptrend lines are now first resistance. The ISDEX is a long way from its May trendline, which is at 720. To the upside is 790-800 resistance.
We said the Dow looked tired last week, and boy was it ever. The Dow fell back into the bearish diamond pattern it broke out of last month. That boundary, 10,850, i
s now first resistance on the Dow. To the downside, we won’t panic until the Dow crosses 10,500, the October 1998 trendline. The S&P 500 broke 1460 support this morning. Next strong support is 1435-1440, and then 1425. Critical support is around 1405.
Given that investors haven’t seen much to like in earnings reports over the last couple of months, there isn’t likely going to be much good news for the market for a while. A neutral Fed is built in to stock prices at this point, and investors don’t like the combination of weakness in companies’ core businesses while they meet their bottom lines through investment gains. Another problem complicating any bottom here is complacency: the volatility index, the VIX, gained 1 to 23 today. Not very impressive considering that the contrary indicator had a big spike up to 40 at the Nasdaq’s bottom in May. A move to 30 or higher would be nice to see here. Also, the put/call ratio is still a very low .57; the Nasdaq spiked up to around .90 at its May bottom. It’s hard to get a significant bottom without a high level of fear.
