Yet another day of disappointing earnings and worries that the U.S. economic rebound may not last sent stocks sprawling on Friday, capping the worst week in the stock market since September.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ fell 5 to 130, and the Nasdaq plunged 49 to 1663. The S&P 500 dropped 15 to 1076, and the Dow lost 124 to 9910, closing under its 200-day moving average for the first time in two months. Volume declined to 1.38 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.88 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 19 to 12 on the NYSE, and 23 to 12 on the Nasdaq.
Overture was one of the very few bright spots on the day, soaring 32% on better than expected results and a three-year extended agreement with Yahoo
.
VeriSign plunged 45% after missing revenue estimates and warning.
Adaptec edged higher on its earnings report, but others fell, led by a 24% plunged in shares of Digital Insight
. Microchip
, Flextronics
, Corvis
, Aspen
, JDS
and Veeco
all fell.
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.
As we said last night, sell-offs that come back most of the way, but not all the way, almost always seem to have more work to do on the downside, and today was no exception. The S&P 100 (first chart) has continued to head lower since breaking critical 547 support, and the big caps are at their lowest close since late September. If the index can rebound and take out 547, the bulls could regain control; otherwise, 485-490 is the minimum downside to be expected on the OEX. With the end-of-the-month/start-of-the-month rally coming up, it’s possible the OEX could backtest the breakdown at 547, about 3% up from here. The Dow (second chart) broke critical 9934-9950 support, which is now first resistance. Next support is 9850, then 9750, 9450-9600, and 9200-9300. Major resistance can be found at 10,100-10,175. The S&P 500 (third chart) is clinging to 1074 support; below that is 1052. 1082-1085 is first resistance, and 1095-1098 is now major resistance. The Nasdaq (fourth chart) broke its February low at 1696 and reentered its September 17 gap at 1670. Support is 1650, 1627, 1619 and 1613. 1670 and 1680 are resistance, and 1696 is now major resistance.
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