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Technical Trader Closing Brief

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Rebound Rally

Thu, Aug 28 2008, 06:00 GMT
by Harry Boxer

The Technical Trader

The stock market staged a rebound rally on Wednesday. The indices were up nicely for most of the session, then gave back a chunk of it going into the last 20 minutes or so, and then rebounded towards the close to add to the gains.

The day started out with a move up and then down. The down part was the low for the day, and they then had a nice pop to the upside. They fell short of yesterday's highs, and then moved down in a 3-wave orderly pullback, reaching the intraday moving averages and trendlines, and then had the strongest rally of the day late morning into early afternoon. They consolidated mid-afternoon, at which point they rallied one more time, with the Nasdaq reaching new highs for the day and the S&P failing to confirm. When that occurred they rolled over sharply, with the NDX giving back half of its gains and the S&P about a third.

But they did firm up into the close, with the Dow up nearly 90 today, the S&P 500 up 10.15, and the Nasdaq 100 managing to close back over 1900 at 1900.30, up nearly 14 today. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOXX) was up 1.83.

The technicals were solid. Advance-declines were better than 3 to 1 positive on New York and 2 to 1 on Nasdaq. Up/down volume was nearly 4 to 1 positive on New York on very light total volume of just over 800 million. Nasdaq traded more than 1.5 billion shares and had a ratio of about 2 1/ 2 to 1 positive on advancing over declining volume.

TheTechTrader.com board did very well today with solid point-plus gainers. Leading the way was Focus Media (FMCN) at 31.22, up 2.32.
FSYS snapped back 2.10 today to 51.09. DryShips (DRYS) was up 1.98 to 73.33. SunPower (SPWR), a Chart of the Week last Sunday, was up 1.75 to 93.44. Excel Maritime (EXM), also in the shipping sector, was up 1.59. Energy Conversion Devices (ENER) rose 1.60 to 78.34 in advance of tomorrow morning's earnings release. The USO in a rebound in oil was up 1.64.

Among other gainers, Chart of the day Clean Energy (CLNE) advanced 96 cents today on more than 2 million. A-Power Energy (APWR) snapped back 88 cents on more than 1 million. Almost Family (AFAM), one of our recent Charts of the Week, was up 81 cent. Another of last week's Charts of the Week, Blue Coat Systems (BCSI), was up 72 cents at 18.92. Fannie Mae (FNM) advanced a solid 86 cents on 121 million shares, and closed at the high for the day going away, a solid gain there. Portfolio position Greatbatch (GB) was up 28 cents, and Lehman (LEH) advanced 75 cents today.

On the downside, point-plus losers included Solarfun (SOLF), which got hammered 2.61 after its earnings release and conference call, closing at 16.33 on 16 million shares. United (UAUA) also got taken back on the rise in oil down 1.27 to 9.88 on 31 1/3 million shares. Sequenom (SQNM) gave back 83 cents, and the DUG on the rise in oil dropped 87 cents.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices did manage to take out initial overhead resistance, but pulled back sharply late in the afternoon before bouncing. The pattern is indecisive at this point, but the overall look of the last several sessions shows the indices remain in a downtrend and have not broken back out. However, they did close above the moving averages on the hourly charts, a positive sign.

Published on  Thu, Aug 28 2008, 07:15 GMT