Stocks rose Thursday after Nokia and Ciena said they will meet earnings estimates.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 3 to 233, and the Nasdaq climbed 21 to 1993. The S&P 500 rose 9 to 1175, and the Dow added 45 to 10019. Volume declined to 545 million shares on the NYSE, and 907 million on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 15 to 12 on the NYSE, and 19 to 12 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.
Oracle slipped 3/4 to 15 5/16 ahead of its earnings report tonight. The company has already warned that earnings will come in 2 cents below estimates at 10 cents a share, so traders will be studying the company’s forward guidance. Adobe
also reports tonight.
The Producer Price Index and Michigan Consumer Sentiment will be reported tomorrow morning.
Ciena surged 4 3/4 to 58 1/8 after reaffirming its bullish earnings outlook. Juniper
rose 2 to 59 1/4, Cisco
rose 25/32 to 21 1/32, and JDS Uniphase
climbed 15/15 to 25 1/2. Corning
added .59 to 24.57 on a deal with China Netcom. Nokia
surged 3.08 to 24.88 after the company lowered revenue estimates but said it would meet bottom line estimates.
Yahoo rose 1/2 to 15 13/16 despite comments by Disney
chief Michael Eisner that Disney is not interested in buying Yahoo, the latest big media company to say that.
Akamai fell 1 9/32 despite a new COO and a deal with Broadwing
.
Siebel Systems , off 2 to 26 3/4, continued to fall on earnings worries. Check Point
slipped 9/16 to 68 3/16.
Network Appliance fell 1 5/8 to 19 9/16 after JP Morgan lowered estimates on both NTAP and EMC
, which rose 1.70 to 37. SanDisk
, off 15/16 to 19 15/16, warned.
Some technical 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 is doing the opposite today of what it did yesterday: the index is threatening to close lower than its open (2023.79) after gapping up, created an ugly black candlestick. Not a good sign. All is not lost, however, as long as the index can preserve its recent rally attempt by staying above 1922 or so. There is a gap at 1924-1930 that has so far provided support, and 1950 could provide support above that. The Nasdaq continues to form a bullish falling wedge (first chart), with the lower line touching on the December and January closing lows; that lower line is declining at 5 points or so a day, so we’ll place it at 1907 for today and 1902 for tomorrow. A break below 1885 would negate that pattern. The next strong support on the index is at about 1850-1870. To the upside, the Nasdaq needs to fill a gap down at 2042-2053, and must get back above 2070, the redrawn 1990 logarithmic trendline. After that, the upper boundary of that falling wedge is around 2100, and next resistance after that is 2252. The index is trapped in a range here; between 1900 and 2100, everything is noise. The Nasdaq 100 is also forming a bullish forming wedge (second chart), but could also be forming a nasty bear flag (third chart), with
about 350 points of potential downside. A pattern to keep an eye on. On the plus side, the Nasdaq created a positive divergence the last two days: for the first time, the S&P 500 set lower lows, but the Nasdaq did not. At 26 times earnings, the 10 largest Nasdaq stocks are beginning to look attractive (albeit with falling earnings) compared to the price-to-earnings ratios of 20 sported by the Dow and S&P.
The S&P 500 is back above 1171, its low of two days ago, but faces a lot of resistance from 1191, the July 1998 high, to 1198. Below 1160, the S&P doesn’t have another strong support on the charts until 1125. To the upside, the index must take out 1214-1215, an important level that marked the index’s recent breakdown.
The Dow is hanging on to 10,000 support, but must get back above 10,300 to be restored to health. To the downside, there are supports at 9900, 9850, 9800, 9750, then 9650, 9350 and 9200. The Transports are barely standing today after their recent beating, a big negative because of their importance to the health of the economy as a whole. We still believe a turn is coming in the next week or so, but this is one unstable market until then.
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