Don’t Argue With This
News, pundits and explanations are lagging
indicators. Price is the bottom-line arbiter when it comes to markets, and
every successful trader honors the tape. The market received a
boatload of negative news today, enough to capsize it, but the
technology-laden Nasdaq is outperforming the broad market in price action
that cannot be ignored.
I’ve mentioned repeatedly in Market Flash the utility
of checking TradingMarkets Futures Indicators page on a daily basis. Those
who did found the
December Nasdaq 100 futures
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big-cap tech Nasdaq 100 cash index
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List for a third consecutive day. Despite the barrage of poor economic news today, the
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rallies, despite repeated volleys of bad news, it’s talking. One of the
strongest things a market can do is continue to rally on bad news.
The Nasdaq Composite is down 9.30 at 1722.24, the
S&P 500 is down 7.00 at 1078.20, and the Dow is down 67 at 9278. The
Nasdaq 100 Cash is down 6.81 at 1417.88, while the Nasdaq 100 futures
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is trading at breakeven levels at 1423.00.
Today’s multi-whammy of a five-year low in durable
goods orders, a 10-year high in weekly jobless claims, and an 11% plunge in
sales of existing homes, are all reinforcing what many have predicted would
occur in the aftermath of the 9/11 strikes: a slumping economy.
The tech sector is also enduring a downgrade in
Oracle
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PowerRating). The database and enterprise software maker is down 8.8%
after a Salomon Smith Barney analyst cut her rating in the stock. ORCL is
trading at 13.39.
Networkers are also weighing on tech. Brocade
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and Juniper Networks
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So what’s up in tech? The semiconductor index
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although up just a fraction of a percent at +.72%, has erased a negative 4%
start. Leaders here include several Nasdaq 100 (and SOX) components, such as
KLA Tencor
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These three are up between 4% and 6% each, respectively.
TradersWire Interactive pointed out a stock and the
underlying volume dynamics that took it up nearly $2 after the following
post:
“In a single stroke, Zebra Technologies
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fortnight’s (that’s two weeks) worth of closes and is catapulting to a
one-month high, up 4.86 at 46.11 in a surge alert.
The interesting volume pattern — it has been deceiving because the
past three down days appear to be distribution with their lower closes
rather than accumulation — in this stock is that a buyer(s) has stepped in
every day in the past three at 1:00 PM ET and bought 425,000- 475,000
shares.