What Popped The Market’s Balloon
The markets started out with a bang, but
then quickly faded to the red zone. Prior to the open, Iraq had announced that it
would allow UN weapons inspectors into the country unconditionally. Then a
weaker-than-expected Industrial Production report began to change the market
bias. The markets favored the Iraqi news over the latter and bolted higher, then
immediately retreated within the first half-hour.
There are very few sectors trading positive.
Biotech
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$BTK.X |
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PowerRating), Apparel and Retail are up. The weaker
sectors on the day pulling the markets lower are Oil
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$XOI.X |
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PowerRating),
Oil Services
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$OSX.X |
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$XAU.X |
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PowerRating), Brokers
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$XBD |
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PowerRating), Grocery, Machinery
and Tobacco.
The Phlx Semiconductor Index
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$SOX.X |
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PowerRating)
is dropping to new 52-week lows. Some of the stocks leading the decline are
Texas Instruments
(
TXN |
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PowerRating), Broadcom
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BRCM |
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PowerRating),
International Rectifier
(
IRF |
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PowerRating), Cypress Semiconductor
(
CY |
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PowerRating),
PMC
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PMCS |
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PowerRating) and Maxim Integrated Products
(
MXIM |
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PowerRating).
Gtech Holdings
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GTK |
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PowerRating)
continues to rally higher with increasing volume. Today GTK has broken above the
62% retracement line (drawn from this year’s high to low). GTK is trading at
25.69, up .59.
Mandalay Resort
(
MBG |
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PowerRating) is breaking out
of a saucer pattern with increasing volume. MBG is trading at 32.00, up 1.05.
Biosite
(
BSTE |
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Chart |
News |
PowerRating) is beginning
to pull back after a thrust higher. The stock is up 0.06 to 28.50 and is
holding a
3-month
relative strength rank of 98 from TradingMarkets.com.
Nasdaq Breadth
Adv: 1214 UpVol: 31474300
Dec: 1843 DnVol: 47057362
Net: -629 Net: -15583062
NYSE Breadth
Adv: 1055 UpVol: 16485749
Dec: 2049 DnVol: 60608410
Net: -994 Net: -44122661