{+++}Many companies took an earnings hit today, some, like Apple, beat the number as usual as IPhone sales were off the hook. I bought my first ever Blackberry Curve a few weeks ago and absolutely love it, but I know there is still room in my life for an IPhone.
The day started out with a move down but they quickly reversed and rallied sharply, as the mid-morning snapback resulted in higher levels, with NDX reaching 1360 and the SPX reaching 850. By mid-day they were consolidating, pulling back and retesting, but several probes of support held and they rallied to nominal new session highs, and, in the NDX’s case, to new 6-week rally highs. However, that late reversal was a very sharp one, triggered perhaps by rumors about the stress test indicating the banks were much weaker than expected.
Net on the day the Dow was down 82.99 and the S&P 500 down 6 1/2, but the Nasdaq 100 was up 6.66. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 10.42.
Advance-declines narrowed dramatically at the close. They still ended slightly higher, by about 8 to 7 on New York and only by 130 issues on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was lower by 4 to 3 on New York on total volume of 1 3/4 billion. Nasdaq traded more than 2.6 billion and had a 3 to 2 positive volume ratio.
The markets did succumb to a rollover when the bell rang at 3pm and the move was led by the financials. Still a lot of fast money that is coming into the market early in the day and leaving by late afternoon. As I keep saying, the money isn’t sticky and I don’t expect it to be for quite a while, at least until the banks get resolved.
