Early Signs Point Up
After the opening gap up yesterday, the market traded down until around 12:50 PM ET, when the SPDRS made an intraday low of 133 1/4, just below Tuesday’s close–something that often happens when the market gaps up.
For the third day in a row, the market trended up in the afternoon and into the close. The SPDRS made an intraday high of 135 just about on the bell at 4:00 PM. The market was tentative–everyone was still Greenspan-ed out. Volume was moderate, but breadth and up volume ratio were good, and all the major sector indexes, except retail, were up all day. Bonds–inflation and all–finished up 23 ticks, and the S&P, Dow and NASDAQ, led by techs and internets, all finished positive as well.
This morning as I look at the tape, the futures are up 3 points and bonds are down two ticks. Based on the action yesterday and the day before, the odds favor an up day today.
Target Stocks Of The Day  We want to watch stocks with real volatility, high relative strength, and some momentum going for them. Two narrow range patterns that look good are Ascend Communications [ASND>ASND] and Doubleclick [DCLK>DCLK].
Continuation setups in the direction of the trend include Tellabs [TLAB>TLAB], Cisco [CSCO>CSCO], Ameritrade [AMTD>AMTD], Qualcomm [QCOM>QCOM], and Schwab [SCH>SCH], which only gave a 1-point move above entry yesterday, but could break out of a seven-day consolidation and really accelerate.
If the Dow gets going again watch: American Express [AXP>AXP], which closed at the top of its range and right at its 50-day moving average; JP Morgan [JPM>JPM], which after three pullback days closed at the top of its range and above the prior day’s close, and Allied Signal [ALD>ALD], which has teased us with three closes in the top of its range; it should accelerate if the Dow gets marked up.
Program trading numbers  Buy: 6.35. Sell: 1.95. Fair Value: 4.20.
Editor’s note: If you want to learn more about Kevin Haggerty’s trading strategies, click on the link below to go to his new series of tutorial articles.