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Strategies & Market Trends : Sharck Soup -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sharck who wrote (37625)	2/28/2002 6:28:24 PM
From: StormRider	Respond to of 37746

General Commentary by Michael Ashbaugh It was another ugly day for the markets as the Nasdaq was not able to build on early buy interest. In fact, the closed towards its worst levels of the session on relatively solid volume of 1.9 billion shares. On the positive side, market internals were not particularly bearish as declining volume led advancing volume by roughly 2 to 1. Put another way, the internals were what you might see on an average down day despite the somewhat heavier volume. Also note that technology bellwethers Cisco Systems (CSCO +0.2%) and Microsoft (MSFT -0.1%) managed to hold essentially flat on the session. With the index currently at 1731, we will be looking for one of two possible scenarios from a technical perspective. Broadly speaking, watch for whether the index can retest and hold support in the general area of 1696/1716. If this happens, the stage would be set for a near-term double bottom and the Nasdaq may just find some traction to the upside. The second -- less pleasant -- scenario would be failure at 1696 which positions the index for a reasonably healthy slide. At that point, we would be looking for subsequent support at 1650/1652 which matches up with notable congestion going back to November and also approximates a 62% retracement of the September to January rally. If support at 1650 should fail, the 1626 level may be another good candidate as it represents the bottom of a gap created on October 11th. Note that under either scenario, the key in the near term will be to keep an eye on the 1696/1716 area. Tomorrow, look for the revised Michigan Sentiment numbers to be released at 9:45 ET which is fifteen minutes after the market open. The consensus estimate is for a reading of 91.0 though a number materially above or below that level could move the markets accordingly. Just fifteen minutes after that, the ISM Index (Institute for Supply Management) will be reported at 10:00 ET. Here the consensus expectation is for a reading of 51.0 and note that any number above 50.0 represents growth. The ISM Index was formerly called the National Purchasing Manager's Index and also carries enough weight to potentially move the markets. Please feel free to direct comments to mashbaugh@briefing.com