It was a very strong session for the indices and a terrific ending to the week, as the indices surged from the get-go, rallied all morning, backed off mid-afternoon, but came on into the close and closed in a very strong manner to end the week with a bang.

The day started out with a strong surge from the get-go that took out yesterday's highs, and the rally was on. After a brief consolidation in the morning, they ran to secondary highs, consolidated again for about 1-1 1/2 hours and then took off until mid-day when they reached their highs for the day. On two other occasions they retested those highs right at them, but couldn't get through and backed off.

Net on the day the Dow still ended up 217 1/2 at 8280.59, the S&P 500 was up 22.74 at 868.59, and the Nasdaq 100 up 32.38 at 1277.49. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 7.85, up 3 1/2 percent.

The technicals were very strong. Advance-declines were about 5 to 1 positive on New York and 3 to 1 positive on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 11 to 1 positive on New York on total volume of about 1.6 billion. Nasdaq traded about 2.4 billion and had about a 5 to 1 volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was vastly higher, with only a couple losers. The ultrashort ETFs got slammed, as would be expected. The Direxion Financial Bear 3x Shares (FAZ) dropped from 48 to 39.80, closing at 40.94, down 9.91. That's off nearly 20 points just from yesterday morning's high. The Direxion Large Cap Bear 3X Shares (BGZ) dropped 5.58 to 59.41.

On negative earnings news, Hartford Financial Services (HIG) dropped dramatically to as low as 10.66 this morning. It did manage to rally back more than 2, but closed down 2.41 on the day on 70 million shares.

DryShips (DRYS) lost a quarter, and the U.S. Oil Fund ETF (USO) lost 61 cents today. Morgan Stanley (MS) was also down 32 cents today.

But MS aside , the financial sector was generally strong today. Bank of America (BAC) jumped 1.29 to 6.13 on 718 million shares. Citigroup (C) popped 38 cents to 3.91 on more than a quarter billion. JP Morgan (JPM) jumped 3.09 at 27.63. Wells Fargo (WFC) at 19.14 was up 2.87.

The ag stocks were strong again today with Potash (POT) up 5.28 to 91.20, Mosaic (MOS) up 3.70 at 45.05, Agrium (AGU) up 2.49 to 38.61, and CF Holdings (CF) up 2.19 to 54.63.

Other stocks of note, Apple (AAPL) jumped 3.96 to 99.72, tagging 100 at its high today. Portfolio position Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) jumped 1.50, closing at 25.75.

Other portfolio positions: Genco Shipping (GNK) jumped 1.63 to 20.34, Sequenom (SQNM) snapped back 1.36 to 18.47.and Net 1 Ueps Technologies (UEPS) gained 64 cents to 13.63.

In addition, former portfolio position and Chart of the Week TeleCommunication Systems (TSYS) rose 1.33 to 8.58 a strong earnings report.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices broke out above key short-term resistance on the Nasdaq 100 and took out minor resistance on the S&P 500, but the SPX remains trailing behind, which is a concern to us. The NDX is now near its early January high, just a few points from it, but the SPX is about 77 points from its Early January right now.

So there's a big difference in the rate of ascent on these two indices, and negative divergence may be setting up. But in any case a strong ending to a solid week.

Good trading!

Harry

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Harry Boxer Archive

Comments

07 Feb 09, 15:53

The Future Trend

Harry-

We know what happened in the past. What we want to know is...what will the market do in the future.

Tom Brady

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