ANOTHER DISAPPOINTING FINISH
By Harry Boxer, The Technical Trader (www.thetechtrader.com)
It was another disappointing finish to what was a promising day, particularly in the Dow and S&P 500, which were up strongly most of the day and making new intraday highs all session. Then with about 45 minutes to go, Nasdaq, which had been trailing and failed to break resistance all day, rolled over and led the indices down.
The Nasdaq 100 had a line of price resistance that proved very tough to get through. On four or five occasions today it smacked up against it and also up against the declining 21-day moving average on the hourly chart but could not get through. That ultimately proved to be the market’s undoing today
A view of the technicals showed the adavance-declines on New York were just slightly positive by about 100 issues. Nasdaq was negative by about 300 issues. Up/down volume was 6-5 positive on New York and about 3-2 negative on Nasdaq. Total volume was about 1.2 billion on New York and about 1.5 billon on Nasdaq, so an average day.
Net on the day, the Dow was up 55, the S&P 500 up 3.20, the Nasdaq 100 and Composite down more than 4, the OEX up 1.7, and the SOX down 3.5. A very mixed day, and, as I said, a day that held a lot of promise but failed to follow through.
It’s definitely normal for the market to back off at strong resistance after a spike-down low and a rally like we had on Friday. Let’s see what tomorrow brings in terms of a retracement/retest and whether the markets can hold their lows and eventually take out those tough resistance levels.
The important level to watch for tomorrow is near 1155-56 on the Nasdaq 100. Beyond that additional resistance would be at the declining 40-day moving average about 1170-72. On the S&P 500 resistance is about 1038-40, and beyond that 1050.
Right now, unfortunately, the overall trend is still down. We have not been able to break the declining tops line and declining moving averages, and I’m hoping the market can back and fill in this area, and do some sort of basing action and try to move out. But that remains to be seen.
Good trading!
Harry |
