2 ways to play the tech led rally
Breakouts Abound in Tech
Last week started out quite boring. Overall, the market seemed to have stalled.
But, on Thursday, the NASDAQ 100 Shares
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QQQQ |
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PowerRating) broke out to $41.00. This
was the level that I mentioned last week as actionable for buys into this ETF.
In conjunction with the breakout in the QQQQ, we also saw
Microsoft
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MSFT |
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PowerRating) break out. For a more precise entry point on either of
these, you should wait for a slight pullback in them. However, if you are
willing to live with possible short-term losses right at the beginning of your
holding period, then you could go ahead and take a long position. Because MSFT
pays a higher dividend than QQQQ, you may decide to just buy the individual
stock and not an ETF.
This would be up to each investor’s choice (based on risk
tolerance and other factors), but remember that MSFT has Xbox 360 coming out.
With the breakout ahead of the release of the gaming system, it could make for
an extra interesting Christmas season for the company.
Another interesting thing to note is that even though the NASDAQ Composite broke
out last week, the S&P 500 remains at a point of resistance. I wouldn’t be
surprised if this index is also able to break out to 1250 this week (maybe even
today).
However, more fuel to the fire for technology is the fact that
the NASDAQ broke out before either of the other major indexes (Dow and S&P). The
Dow Jones Industrials
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DJX |
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PowerRating) broke out on Friday when it hit and closed above
10750. I still have some concern over the breadth of the rally, but all in all
things are looking pretty good.
Sara Conway is a
registered representative at a well-known national firm. Her duties
involve managing money for affluent individuals on a discretionary basis.
Currently, she manages about $150 million using various tools of technical
analysis. Mrs. Conway is pursuing her Chartered Market Technician (CMT)
designation and is in the final leg of that pursuit. She uses the Point and
Figure Method as the basis for most of her investment and trading decisions, and
invests based on mostly intermediate and long-term trends. Mrs. Conway
graduated magna cum laude from East Carolina University with a BSBA in finance.