Tradable Rally
Today’s commentary is written by Brice Wightman.
The market rallied briefly at the open, slid for an hour before bouncing, and
then after testing its lows, rallied sharply into the close. The NDX began its
rally right on cue, just above the 2.0 volatility band. (For more on this, be
sure to catch Kevin Haggerty at TM2001
next week). Today’s action has the Dow closing at its intraday highs, at
8681.42, up 114.03. The Nasdaq, after falling almost 50 points intraday, rallied
into plus territory, but closed down 32.7 at 1460.77. The $SPX rallied 11.36 to
close at 1018.37.
NYSE volume was 1.47 billion, and Nasdaq volume was just over 2 billion.
NYSE advancers 1923, decliners 1189. Nasdaq advancers 1716, decliners
1850.
Leading the charge out of the 1-2-3 bottom (again, TM2001)
were Intel
(
INTC |
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News |
PowerRating) and Microsfot
(
MSFT |
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PowerRating). Portfolio managers are
rebalancing before the quarter-end.
One bright spot was RF Micro Devices
(
RFMD |
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PowerRating), which announced it sees
growth for Q3. Still, the Semiconductor Index
(
$SOX |
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month alone.
Strong sectors were Biotech
(
$BTK |
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PowerRating) up 26.15,
(
$HCX |
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(
$OIX |
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PowerRating),
up 12.78. (Note: both the OIX and the HCX were the subject of Eddie Kwong’s
Chart of the Day the past two days–check it out).
Merrill Lynch finally cut their rating on Global Crossing
(
GX |
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PowerRating) today, to a
Neutral from a Long-term Buy. This, as the stock made another new low to close
at 1.97.
Concerns on sales sent business software companies spinning down, among them
Peoplesoft
(
PSFT |
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PowerRating) down .49 at 17.96, and Siebel
(
SEBL |
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PowerRating) down .74 at
12.98.
The nation’s largest long distance company AT&T
(
T |
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PowerRating) proposed a merger
with Bellsouth
(
BLS |
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PowerRating). T closed up .91 at 18.70, and BLS closed at
41.95, down .60.
The Nasdaq suspended rules that require companies to maintain at least $1
share price. Currently, over 15% of Nasdaq stocks do not meet minimum listing
requirements. The original rule states that a company faces de-listing if its
bid is below $1 for 30 days.
Brice
PS Can’t wait to see ya’ll at TM2001.
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