Thursday, April 10, 2008

Welcome To A Trading Range

DJIA + 54.72, +0.44% SP500 + 6.06, +0.45% NASDAQ Comp. + 29.58, +1.27% Russell 2000 + 9.04, +1.29% Broad indices bounced off support and moved higher today, maintaining the tight trading range the market has been in for the past 7 trading days. Buyers again stepped up at support and moved the market above last Tuesday’s S1 level of the large white candle. While we don’t have an intermediate term up trend on the broad market until we break above resistance, numerous leading stocks were trending higher today.

The rumor is that someone is not enjoying the trading range and it has decided to stay around until everyone gets with the program. It is what it is and you might as well focus on trending stocks and avoid the trading range stocks for now.

Brokerage stocks GS, LEH, MER, MS moved lower today Today's Action Support Bounce AAPL, CELG, CHL, DECK, EBAY, IBM, ISRG, NKE, SLB DIA, FXI, QQQQ Moving Higher MOS, POT Breakout BRCM, MTL Unconfirmed Bullish Harami AMZN, FWLT, XHB Intermediate Term Market Trend: Neutral Short Term Market Trend: Neutral

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Dave!

Glad to finally benefit from your blog **our weekly Dave Johnson fix was just not enough ;)

So we've often heard you say that for the most part economic data does not change the trend, but what about earnings misses on a major stock such as GE. True we are at the top of a sideways trend and will probably bounce down. But what if we had been at the bottom of the channel -- couldn't GE have possible pushed through support and send all the markets lower?

Unknown said...

I know one day does not a trend make, but we have broken through S1 and with consumer sentiment being so weak, it's tempting to put my bear hat back on. But it seems that every time I do, I get whipped around.

Last Friday the market just shook off the dismal job loss report and held S1 support. You would think THAT would be a bigger cause for the market to head lower. Instead GE misses their earnings and the market sells off over 220 pts!

Am I missing something?

Dave Johnson said...

Cyl,

Ironically, just last night in my audio comments I reiterated the importance of earnings and how they trumped trend in the short run because new information comes. Also you will note that over the past two weeks I have be harping that "the earnings are coming, the earnings are coming" because they are significant. You might read my end of day comments on Tuesday April 8 post where I mentioned lower earnings and that many expected this could send the market lower.

Dave

Dave Johnson said...

No you're not missing anything...see my comment from mid-day Friday. The market did not rally and my short-term trend status is now bearish. Wednesday and Friday both down days and breaking S1.

Dave