Very Narrowly Mixed Session

Harry Boxer The Technical Trader

The stock market indices had a very narrowly mixed day at the end of the session, not only in price, but in underlying technicals. However, there was some volatility during the day. Initially there was a plunge down to support that held 5130 Nasdaq 100 and 2272 S&P 500. They rallied sharply, taking the Nasdaq 100 up to 5162, yesterday’s high, but fell short on the S&P 500 around 2284, which was beneath yesterday’s high of 2289. They came down midsession, bounced around into midafternoon, tried to retest, successfully did so, but then rallied back to resistance and couldn’t get through.

Net on the day, it was a narrow session, with the Dow down 6.03 at 19,884.91, 53 points off the low. The S&P 500 was up 1.30 at 2280.85, 9 points off the low. The Nasdaq 100 was down 4.99 at 5147.70.

Advance-declines were 14 to 11 positive on the New York Stock Exchange, and 15 to 13 negative on the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 10 to 9 positive on New York, total volume of 3.8 billion shares traded. The Nasdaq traded 2 billion shares and had a flat volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was narrowly changed. Priceline.com (PCLN) was down 1.22 to 1574.09, Apple Inc. (AAPL) down 22 cents to 128.53, and Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) down 1.58 to 139.20, but Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) was up 2.84 to 298.53, and Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) gained 7.83 to 840.18.

Baidu, Inc. (BIDU) dropped 42 cents to 173.40, Facebook, Inc. (FB) gave back 2.39 to 130.84, and First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) was down 20 cents to 31.59.

Tesla Motors, Inc. (TSLA) jumped 2.31 to 251.55.

Other stocks to the upside included United States Steel Corp. (X) up 3.52 to 34.85. It was one of the stars for today. Shopify Inc. (SHOP) was up 1.13 to 52.32, and NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) gained 1.44 to 115.39.

The only other stock on the downside today was Argan, Inc. (AGX), down 2.20 to 70.80.

Checking TheTechTrader.com percent-gain leaderboard, Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (KERX) popped 70 cents, or 15%, to 5.48, on 3.7 million shares traded.

Benitec Biopharma Limited (BNTC) gained 2.15, or 134%, to 3.75, on 9.9 million shares traded, or 45,000% more volume than average. Naked Brand Group Inc. (NAKD) bounced 1.61, or 138%, to 2.78, on 17 million shares traded. Pulmatrix, Inc. (PULM) ran 1.37, or 37%, to 5.10, on 52 million shares traded. Calithera Biosciences, Inc. (CALA) advanced 1.50, or 22%, to 8.45, on 1.5 million shares traded.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, the indices plunged at the opening, rallied back sharply, came down again, consolidated, and bounced around into the close to finish narrowly mixed.

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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