It was a very volatile day on the market, almost more volatile than on an options expiration day! There were lots of mid-day big swings. For example, X was strong in the morning, trading above $182; it ended at $172.15, down almost $4 for the day (a $10 swing)! The market did manage to close in the green, lead by semiconductors and the biotechs.
The Dow was up +24.43 points; SPX added +3.64 points; Nasdaq gained +16.31 points:
Commodities cooled off for the day: USO (oil) -2.47%; UNG (natural gas) -0.61%; OIH (oil services) -1.03%; GLD (gold) -1.07%; SLV (silver) -0.45%; XME (metals and mining) -1.03%. The techs were stronger: SOX (semiconductors) +0.72%; BTK (biotechs) +0.98%, SWH (software) +0.89%. MOO (agriculture) came back up a little, +0.73%. FXI (Chinese ADRs) advanced +0.93%.
SPX
SPX gained +3.64 points to close at 1394.35. It managed to stay above its 30-day MA. Its MACD went lower.
Nasdaq
Nasdaq added +16.31 points to close at 2464.58. It closed just under its 20-day MA. Its MACD continued to slide.
Well, the market was trading all over the place today. It was strong in the morning and weak in the afternoon. It almost briefly went red, but, managed to close green. I did not publish any trades today, and still kept most of my cash. Sometimes, cash is a very good position to be in. After a sharp drop like yesterday, it allows “smart money” to reposition itself, as a lot of money came out of the market in the first 3 sessions of the week. There’s lots of smoke in the air still, difficult to see which way things are going. It is perhaps “smarter” to wait for the dust to settle a bit.
It was nice to see the the semiconductors jumped back up and the biotechs started to wake up. VIX went above 19 and pulled back to close just above 18. That’s good for the market. The financials were stronger today; we need to see them come up much more and establish a firm bottom.
This morning, STP reported earnings that more than doubled from the year before. It jumped in the morning, but, quickly faded in the volatile market environment. It closed down 2.83%! Other solars were not so hot either. FSLR continued to fall and traded below $270 intraday. SOLF got negative comments today and got pounded lower by 22%! CSIQ also saw profit-taking, losing 13.45%. There were other big losers as well: BIDU traded down $20, or 5.63%; DRYS dropped 10%; ISRG lost another $13.9, or 4.82%. However, ISRG jumped more than +5% after the market on the news of being admitted into the “S&P 500 Club”! On the member board, people were talking about SINO, a Chinese shipping IPO. It was brought to us by member ShaolinDude:
ShaolinDude
Posted May 22, 2008 at 10:17 am | Permalink (Edit)
SINO, chinese shipping ipo, up huge today 14-19.
SINO closed at $21.45, up +53.43% for the day. It traded even higher in AH, at $22.58, up another +5.27%!!
Good night and HappyTrading! ™
