Stocks shook off an earnings warning from Hewlett-Packard on Thursday to end the day higher. Qualcomm and VeriSign beat estimates after the close, but JDS Uniphase missed estimates.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 7 to 202, and the Nasdaq climbed 38 to 2022. The S&P 500 rose 12 to 1202, and the Dow added 49 to 10,455. Volume rose to 1.22 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.75 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 19 to 11 on the NYSE, and 21 to 15 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, VeriSign and Qualcomm
rose on better-than-expected results, but JDS Uniphase
plunged on a wider-than-expected loss.
Second quarter GDP will be reported tomorrow morning. The consensus is for a 0.9% gain.
During the day, Hewlett-Packard dropped 1.68 to 24 on an earnings warning. Technical note: Hewlett broke down out of a descending triangle today, with downside potential to 19 or lower (see chart below). The 25 level should now be resistance.
Microsoft lost .88 to 66.60 during an all-day analyst meeting, breaking a 7-month uptrend (see chart below).
Homestore.com rose 1.30 to 27 on better-than expected numbers, and GoTo.com
surged 3.40 to 24.55 after topping estimates.
Corning rose 1.79 to 15.56, Netegrity
surged 3.86 to 25.23, and Vignette
soared 1.36 to 8.20, all on better-than-expected results. Compaq
rose .38 to 14.50 despite warning, and Digital Insight
slipped 1.31 to 16.82 on valuation concerns.
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One nice-looking reversal, with marked improvement in the internals, but with two very big negatives: Microsoft broke a 7-month uptrend today, and GE finished down for the fourth straight day. It’s hard to trust a rally when Microsoft and GE are falling apart, but this one does have some more upside potential in it. The Nasdaq (first chart) closed right at a critical resistance: the downtrend line of a declining channel (the blue lines). A move above 2026 tomorrow would likely break that line and set up a test with the Nasdaq’s main downtrend line just under 2100 (the black line. The 2000 level should now be support. The S&P 500 (second chart) took out a couple of downtrend lines today. A move above 1207 would be a plus, and it would be nice to see the index stay above 1200 this time. The Dow (third chart) is right in the middle of 10,430-10,475 resistance. A move above that would set up a test of the index’s main downtrend line at about 10,600. Finally, a second look at the rounding top in the S&P 500 off the October 1998 lows: http://stockcharts.com/snapshots/1113524.png. Having looked at that with out own software, it seems that that pattern has another month or so before it must resolve one way or another, and the S&P could get as high as 1280 without breaking out of that pattern. But a very interesting one nonetheless.
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