The market started the week off with a down note. They were lower from the get-go and then had a rather sharp sell-off, particularly on the Nasdaq 100 that took it from over 1200 down to the 1170 area. Mid-day they bounced back and forth, tried to stabilize, did roll over and take out the lows, setting new session lows late in the session. But there was no downside follow-through, and they snapped back very sharply, taking the NDX from 1167 to 1192, or 25 points in about a half hour. The S&P 500 went from 858 to about 874 over the same period of time. In the last 15 minutes they backed off again.

Net on the day the Dow was down 65, the S&P 500 down 11, and the Nasdaq 100 was down just under 25. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was down 3 3/4.

The technicals were negative by 23 to 8 on declines over advances on New York and about 3 to 1 negative on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was about 8 to 3 on New York on total volume of a light 1.2 billion. Nasdaq also traded fairy light volume of under 1 2/3 billion and had a 5 1/2 to 1 negative volume ratio.

As a result, it was a sloppy, fairly narrowly mixed close, with a few point plus gainers on our TheTechTrader.com board. Leading the way was POT up 2.70 and AGU up 47 cents in the agriculture group, although CF lost 1.30 and MOS 4 cents. So, it was a mixed picture in that group, which was sharply higher earlier in the morning and gave back a bunch of their gains.

Short ETF instruments were higher today, with the BGZ up 2.60 and the QID 2.18.

Sequenom (SQNM), with outstanding relative action recently, reached as high as 19.87, closing at 19.53, up another 1.18 on more than 2 million.

Rambus (RMBS), extending its recent gains, has moved from under 5 to under 15, or nearly a triple in the last 3 weeks, up another 89 cents today on more than 3 million shares.

Shippers were firm, with Dryships (DRYS) getting above 11 before closing at 10.19, up 82 cents on 34.7 million. That was our Chart of the Day. EXM jumped 96 cents on 6 1.4 million, closing at 7.35.

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See Harry's Chart of the Day Video Presentation
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On the downside, AAPL lost 3.52 on a downgrade to 94.75, trading as low as 93 earlier. ENER at 20.86 was down 1.73, and portfolio position EBS got hammered for 1.64.

RIMM dropped 1.96 to 36.86, and portfolio position SPWR backed off 2.33 to 30.54.

AFAM backed off 1.03, and the USO lost 1.26. It had been up over 40 earlier in the day, but closed at 30.86, a pretty negative reversal day as oil dropped from over 50 to under 45 today.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down for most of the session and threatened to break down sharply late in the session but were saved on a late rally. Still, a negative start to the week.

On the plus side, the indices continued to hold their rising trendlines off the October lows, and the pattern off the recent highs continued to look orderly and constructive to the downside. We'll see if the indices can right themselves, take out overhead resistance, and then take another leg up, which we are expecting.

Right now key support is in the 1157-60 area on the NDX and at about 852-55 zone on the S&P.

Good trading!

Harry

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