Another “Telltail” Sign

For the Nasdaq, it
was another "tailing" experience.

That makes four distribution days in
eight attempts for the Comp.

Thursday’s action was a reminder why I
keep the Morgan Stanley Tech index next to the Naz and NDX on my screen.

The former was up 1.6%, while the
latter was off a tenth.

Despite the p.m. giveback, a look
beneath the surface showed the growth sector giving a fairly good account of
itself Thursday.

The a.m. uptrade gave swing traders
all sorts of pullback opportunities in stocks like Ariba
(
ARBA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, BEA
(
BEAS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
Check Point
(
CHKP |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, etc.

Among the names, Ciena
(
CIEN |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
,
bouncing off its 50-day Wednesday, showed obvious strength for the second day.

If you’re a player in the intermediate
time frame, this is the type of stand-up action you want to keep your eyes on.

In Ciena’s case, however, its
give-and-go is too sharp to offer attractive entry at this point.

Net infrastructure play Cacheflow
(
CFLO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

is a sleeper.

Recent new issue Evolve
(
EVLV |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
is
forming a seven-day triangle on dimming trade.

A few other recent debuts are also
holding up relatively well.

They include Pemstar
(
PMTR |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
.

And Opnet
(
OPNT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
.

JDSU
(
JDSU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
, which couldn’t stay
above its 50-day, is now struggling to stay above its 200.

Intel
(
INTC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
stood right atop its
200.

The trader can glean some valuable
information by observing a stock’s reaction to its 50 and 200.

For example, there is a big difference
between the way Ciena met up with its 50-day (it couldn’t wait to move away from
it) and the way JDSU reacted to its 50-day.

Of course the stock that
stayed well above its 50 — Ariba being one example — is the fairest of all.

In all, just another
noncommittal late-summer session.