NDX Reaches Over Five Thousand Today

Harry Boxer The Technical Trader

The stock market indices started the week off in a very strange session, the Nasdaq 100 working its way higher, while the S&P 500 got hammered at the opening, and barely hung on all morning. Midday the Nasdaq 100 extended its move, making new, all-time highs today at 5034.00, while the S&P 500 tried to rally, but rolled over and continued steadily lower. At the end of the day, the Nasdaq 100 pulled back ten points, while a much deeper retrace on the session lows of the S&P 500 and Dow finished at the lows for the day.

Net on the day, the Dow was down 76.42 at 19,887.38, the exact tick low of the day. The S&P 500 was down 8.08 at 2268.90. The Nasdaq 100 was up 17.82 at 5024.90.

Advance-declines were 500 issues lower on the New York Stock Exchange than that of the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 2 to 1 negative on New York, total volume of 3.1 billion shares traded. The Nasdaq traded 1.7 billion shares and had a 3 to 2 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed. Priceline.com (PCLN) was up 9.07 to 1529.64, Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) up 50 cents to 806.65, Apple Inc. (AAPL) up 1.09 to 119.00, Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) 87 cents to 796.86, but Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) dropped 12 cents to 130.96.

Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) popped 78 cents to 177.16, Facebook, Inc. (FB) gained 1.49 to 124.90, and First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) advanced 25 cents to 33.57.

Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) jumped 2.27 to 231.28.

Other stocks to the upside included Exact Sciences Corporation (EXAS) up 2.88 to 17.98, Exelixis, Inc. (EXEL) 2.26 to 17.58, Clovis Oncology Inc (CLVS) 4.83 to 50.86, CoLucid Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (CLCD) 1.50 to 33.45, Aclaris Therapeutics, Inc. (ACRS) 1.05 to 30.01.

The Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bull 3X ETF (LABU) bounced 3.64 to 41.73, about 50 cents off its high.

On the downside, Emergent BioSolutions Inc. (EBS) lost 2.62 to 32.04, Argan, Inc. (AGX) gave back 3.25 to 70.05, and United States Steel Corp. (X) dropped 1.79 to 33.61.

Checking TheTechTrader.com percent-gain leaderboard, CTI BioPharma Corp. (CTIC) popped 98 cents, or 20%, to 5.78, on 2.1 million shares traded.

EnteroMedics Inc. (ETRM) jumped 8.51, or 93%, to 17.70, on 35.6 million shares traded, trading under 2.00 just four days ago. Asure Software, Inc. (ASUR) bounced 1.56, or 17%, to 10.93. 3D Systems Corporation (DDD), on takeover rumors, ran 2.27, or 16%, to 16.73, on 13.6 million shares traded.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices were up all day on the Nasdaq 100, and pretty much down all day on the S&P 500.

Quite the divergence. We’ll see if that resulted in any further downside damage in the next few days.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow.

Good Trading!

Author

Harry Boxer

The Technical Trader

Regular columnist on ADVFN, Stockhouse, and DecisionPoint, among many sites, and regular guest on WinningOnWallStreet, Marketviews.tv, KFWB-Radio Los Angeles, and more. Frequent guest columnist on CBSMarketWatch.

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