From Briefing.com: 11:51AM Nasdaq pushing new intraday highs : -- Technical -- Index continues to push to new intraday highs on solidly bullish market internals. Note that the Nasdaq has surpassed resistance in the area of 1419 to 1423 -- this area is significant as it brackets the reaction lows of both September 2001 and October 1998. From current levels, the index faces modest resistance in the area of 1440/1442 followed by more significant overhead around 1450. To the downside, look for initial support in the range of 1428/1430 followed by a more important floor at 1419/1423.
11:11AM Market Internals : The significance of today's advance will likely be challenged as it comes on a holiday-shortened session and many professionals are off for the day. Nonetheless, today's rally is characterized by market dynamics not experienced for some time. Market internals are decidedly bullish as advancing volume outpaces declining volume by nearly 16 to 1 on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq. To place those numbers in perspective, note that market technicians typically view any ratio in excess of 9 to 1 as representative of extreme buy interest.
9:44AM Micron indicated to open 22-24 (MU) 20.50: -- Update -- Stock indicated to open up sharply after Goldman Sachs Asia upgrades the Asian DRAM sector and MU competitors Winbond and Powerchip (see 8:11 comment).
8:25AM Advanced Micro: positive comments by Pru (AMD) 8.43: Prudential says that DELL's admission late Wednesday that it is evaluating AMD's upcoming Opteron chip could be a coup for AMD (Opteron will compete against INTC's Xeon and Itanium server processors); firm believes that not only is AMD gaining traction with Opteron faster than expected at major PC OEMs, but datapoints suggest that the Opteron is "a real screamer" in terms of performance.
General Commentary
It had to happen one of these days, and what better day then a holiday shortened session in which most traders are absent... Of course, we are talking about a big, broad-based advance... Relieved that the July 4th holiday passed without a major terrorist incident, shorts were forced to do some more covering while buyers were encouraged off the sidelines to do some light bargain hunting... Sector also received a boost from some positive comments by the brokerage community regarding the chip group... Bolstered by these comments and by anticipation over Intel's new chip set be unveiled next week, the influential SOX index surged 9.1%, or nearly 33 points... Rest of sector keyed off huge move in semis, and it was off to the races.
But gain was exaggerated by thin trading conditions, as little more than 1.1 bln shares changed hands... Should also note that indices, including the SOX, were rebounding from new 52-wk lows set earlier in the week... Deeply oversold technical tone contributed to timing and scope of bounce... Fact that indices have yet to challenge meaningful resistance levels suggest that we could see some follow through buying early this week... Nevertheless, Briefing.com will need to see these barriers fall before our skepticism regarding the sustainability of the advance gives way to optimism... The Nasdaq's first hurdle comes in near 1490 (regression line)... Similar resistance for the SOX can be found in the 450 area (retracement/congestion)... Even if these initial ceilings are taken out, traders/analysts will want to see the 50-day moving averages (1578/463) fall before giving thought to a possible trend change.
Unfortunately, the more optimistic scenario is highly unlikely as fundamental backdrop remains in question due to lack of earnings visibility and corporate accounting credibility... Ongoing terrorist threat and war on terror will also limit upside... In sum, this could be a slightly longer and stronger bounce than we've seen over the past couple of months but without a change to the fundamentals it will give way to renewed selling just like all the others.
Robert Walberg
Wennerstrom Semi Equip's:
finance.yahoo.com
Semiconductor Index:
finance.yahoo.com^SOXX+ALTR+AMAT+AMD+BRCM+INTC+KLAC+LLTC+LSCC+LSI+MOT+MU+MXIM+NSM+NVLS+TER+TXN+XLNX&d=t
Thanks for the updated tables Don!
RtS |
