No Surprises
No surprises for
the day-before-the-Fed.
That meant skimpy volume (again), few
moves of any significance, and little to be gleaned about overall market trend.
Over the past eight sessions, the Naz
has put in four accumulation days and no distribution days.
Benchmark techs sloshed around in the
conviction-less trade, with only Cisco
(
CSCO |
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PowerRating), up 3%, able to chisel out
something in excess of 2%.
Among the names, Electronic Arts
(
ERTS |
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a three-week, micro cup-with-handle.
Ciena
(
CIEN |
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Friday’s disappointing performance…then, it broke out of a five-month base on
big volume in the opening minutes of action before reversing and closing below
the lip near the low of the intraday range…beware of stocks like this that run up
a large amount in a brief time period (in this case, 50% in two weeks) and then
immediately break out of a range without any sort of pullback to shake out weak
holders…
Applied Micro Circuits
(
AMCC |
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PowerRating) is
a near-carbon copy of Ciena…it, too, went up about 50% over the past two
weeks, drove to a new high Friday, then eased Monday.
Sycamore
(
SCMR |
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example of a stock that failed shortly after breaking out…in this case, the
breakout wasn’t to a new high, but rather to a five-month high…the failure
itself wasn’t as disconcerting as was the elevated volume that accompanied the
failure.
Micrel
(
MCRL |
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PowerRating) broke out of a
five-month base, only to close below the top of its range.
Ditto for Semtech
(
SMTC |
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PowerRating).
Juniper
(
JNPR |
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that ran up about 50% over the prior two weeks…its behavior, along with
Sycamore and Ciena, should be among those glamours monitored for sentiment
purposes.
Ariba
(
ARBA |
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two-week triangular shelf as volume dims.
Aspen Technology
(
AZPN |
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to show some positive money flow characteristics…the enterprise software
developer’s earnings record isn’t attractive, making it a questionable target
for the intermediate trader, however the swing trader may wish to keep this on
his or her watch list…technically, the stock completed a head-and-shoulders
bottom two weeks ago and has been tracing a pennant since.
Broadcom
(
BRCM |
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away from the pivot of its five-month cup-with-handle.
Brocade
(
BRCD |
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thinner trade for the second session.
Check Point
(
CHKP |
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wheels in a narrow range.
Power One
(
PWER |
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PowerRating), a leader,
disappointed for the second day.
Redback
(
RBAK |
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PowerRating) was shoved down
out of an eight-day shelf.
In all, though the averages were
slightly positive, the failures of Sycamore, Applied Micro, Micrel, Semtech,
Redback, etc. nudged this one slightly into the negative column.