Mixed to Nominally Lower Day with Good Technicals

The stock market indices had a mixed to nominally lower day with pretty good technicals for a positive down day, which is bullish, but the overall look of the trend wasn’t good. The snapback began yesterday, extended this morning, and came down in a 3-wave corrective pullback. It remains to be seen whether the lows hold, and whether or not this extends to the downside, or if this is just a consolidation before we resume back up. Right now, I favor the downside, so we’ll see if that occurs.

Net on the day, the bottomline is that today’s losses were nominal. The Dow was down 4.72 at 20,656.58, about 38 points off the low. The S&P 500 was down 2.49 at 2345.96, only 4 points off the low. The Nasdaq 100 was down 12.41 at 5355.14, 9 points off the low.

Advance-declines were 19 to 11 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and 9 to 5 positive the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 17 to 14 positive on New York, total volume of 3.2 billion shares traded. The Nasdaq traded 1.7 billion shares and had a 9 to 8 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was extremely narrowly mixed. Priceline.com (PCLN) was down 3.66 to 1748.33, Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) down 12.01 to 817.58, Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 50 cents to 140.92, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) 68 cents to 847.38, and Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) 81 cents to 141.84.

Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) closed nearly flat, up just 3 cents to 169.61, Facebook, Inc. (FB) also flat, down 6 cents to 139.53, and First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) dropped 29 cents to 28.58.

Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) dropped 23 cents to 254.78.

Other stocks to the upside included Clovis Oncology Inc (CLVS), up 1.35 to 68.53, and Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (ESPR) up 1.39 to 40.40.

On the downside, Editas Medicine Inc. (EDIT) dropped 1.60 to 19.27, 9 points off the high, and Kite Pharma, Inc. (KITE) gave back 1.88 to 74.50.

The Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bull 3X ETF (LABU) lost 47 cents to 45.32.

Other than that, there were only fractional changes, up or down.

Checking TheTechTrader.com percent-gain leaderboard, Cancer Genetics, Inc. (CGIX) bounced 45 cents, or 15 1/2%, to 3.35, on 2.8 million shares traded.

HTG Molecular Diagnostics, Inc. (HTGM) ran 1.79, or 84%, to 3.93, on nearly 44 million shares traded.

Flexion Therapeutics, Inc. (FLXN), on takeover rumors, exploded 6.57, or 33%, to 26.25, on 9.1 million shares traded. LSC Communications, Inc. (LKSD) jumped 3.69, or 18%, to 24.51, on 6.9 million shares traded. GreenPlex Services, Inc. (GRPX), a new issue, gained 1.15, or 13%, to 10.13. Penn National Gaming, Inc. (PENN) advanced 1.79, or 12%, to 17.18, on 8.7 million shares traded. Five Below, Inc. (FIVE) eked out 4.12, or 11%, to 42.25, on 7.8 million shares traded.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up in the morning, down in the afternoon, and closed slightly lower on the day.

We'll have to see what transpires tomorrow.

Good Trading!