Indices Closes Moderately Lower on the Day

The stock market indices suffered steep losses early in the session. They came down very sharply to test an important support at the bottom of their current down channels and lateral price support, near 5360 Nasdaq 100 and 2337-8 S&P 500. By midday, they rallied very sharply and took back more than fifty percent of the losses, but pulled back at the end of the session. Only in the last ten or fifteen minutes did they spike up again to finish with nominal losses on the blue chips, but pretty solid losses on the Nasdaq 100.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 6.72 at 20,651.30, 130 points off the low, nearly taking back all their losses, 16 points off its low. The S&P 500 was down 3.38 at 2353.78. The Nasdaq 100 was down 23.28 at 5398.40, about 30 points off its low.

Advance-declines were 18 to 11 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and 16 to 12 positive the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 16 to 13 positive on New York, total volume of 3 billion shares traded. The Nasdaq traded 1.7 billion shares and had a 10 to 7 negative volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly mixed both up and down. Priceline.com (PCLN) was down 7.57 to 1768.4, Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) down 1.38 to 823.35, Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 1.54 to 141.63, and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) 4.68 to 902.35. Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) popped 50 cents to 144.35.

Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) lost 1.21 to 173.01, Facebook, Inc. (FB) gave back 1.12 to 139.92, and First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) eked out 13 cents to 28.10.

Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) dropped 3.68 to 308.71.

Other stocks to the upside included Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD), one of our swing trades, up 1.32 to 13.24, United States Steel Corp. (X) up 96 cents to 34.72, and Deere & Company (DE), also one of our swing trades, 1.53 to 111.16.

Checking TheTechTrader.com percent-gain leaderboard, Sequans Communications S.A. (SQNS) bounced 48 cents, or 17.5%, to 3.22, on 2.5 million shares traded. Very big volume for that stock. MYOS RENS Technology Inc. (MYOS) advanced 33 cent, or 15%, to 2.60, reaching a high at one point in the day of 2.90. Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (CNAT) popped 88 cents, or 14%, to 6.98, on 2.2 million shares traded.

North Atlantic Drilling Limited (NADL) had a fantastic day, exploding from a low of 1.73, all the way up to 2.87, pulled back and closed up 1.97, or 267%, to 2.70, on 24.5 million shares traded. Broadwind Energy, Inc. (BWEN) gained 1.15, or 15%, to 9.02, on nearly a million shares traded.

Pulse Biosciences, Inc. (PLSE) jumped 2.34, 11%, to 23.89.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were down sharply in the morning, up by midday, and then pulled back in a corrective mode, only to snapback into the close on the upside, finishing moderately lower on the day.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Good Trading!