Technology stocks powered higher on Wednesday, but blue chips struggled.
The ISDEX http://www.wsrn.com/apps/ISDEX/ rose 4 to 150, and the Nasdaq climbed 27 to 1731. The S&P 500 rose fractionally to 1085, and the Dow added 5 to 9345, largely on strength in IBM. Volume edged higher to 1.33 billion shares on the NYSE, and 1.88 billion on the Nasdaq. Decliners led 17 to 13 on the NYSE, and advancers led 19 to 16 on the Nasdaq.
After the close, Netegrity , Peregrine
, Cirrus
and Micromuse
met estimates; Foundry
missed; and Comverse
warned.
Beating estimates were JNI , Digital River
, Digex
, New Focus
, Quest
, Microchip
, BroadVision
, Speechworks
and Sanmina
.
During the day, Amazon plunged 20% on a disappointing earnings report.
Juniper rose 3.12 to 27.01 on a Buckingham upgrade.
Online travel stocks Travelocity and Expedia
got whacked after Continental eliminated Internet commissions.
Extreme rose on favorable Salomon Smith Barney comments.
Stocks receiving positive reviews on their earnings reports included QLogic , Fairchild
, Citrix
, LSI
and Entrust
.
Some technical comments on the market: Note: We include 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
It’s a momentum market again; be careful out there. Breadth is narrowing, and the only major index showing any strength is the Nasdaq. That kind of sector rotation hasn’t ended well in the past; will this time be any different? The Nasdaq (first chart) closed above its 50 day moving average at 1705 today, and is threatening to break out of a bull flag with 100-150 points of upside potential. 1735-1740 would do the trick, and 1754 would confirm it. However, the correction doesn’t look complete to us; another trip down to fill the index’s October 11 gap at 1626.26, and possibly as low as 1614, would make for a complete correction in our view, and provide a stronger base for an advance. First support is 1695. The Dow and S&P (second and third charts) are also forming declining channels or bull flags, but they seem to be forming small consolidations that suggest more downside. For the Dow, first resistance is 9420, and support is 9340 and then 9278. On the S&P, resistance is 1095-1099, and first support is 1079.
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