Complete Thursday Game Plan 10/10/13

Markets closed slightly mixed Wednesday, not an optimistic finish after Monday and Tuesday weakness. The Nasdaq today lost ground for the third straight day of the week and fell .5% compared to the S&p 500’s UNCH finish. The one good thing that can be said is that both benchmarks finished off their intraday lows. The Nasdaq is now down 3.4% for the week which would qualify as its worst week of the year so far. In fact it has not had a 3% down move since the week ending 10/12/12 (lost 2.94% that week). That kicked off a 6 week losing streak that sent the tech index down 9% during that time span. It did lose its 50 day SMA but ended 27 handles from its intraday low to finish in the middle of its daily range. Volume was robust for the second straight day. Generally you would like to see a stronger bounce back after the type of weakness we have seen this week. Breaking ones 50 day SMA is not necessarily a bad thing as the Nasdaq did just that in mid April and late June this year before today. It does need to promptly recover it though which it has done both times. Time will tell if this time is different. Some more names with negative news regarding their charts today were YUM GTLS. YUM reported and lost more than 7% in bulging trade. GTLS sliced its 50 day SMA today. The energy name has been a leader in the space but has fallen on tough times recently down now 9% for the week and lower for the last 5 sessions. COST had an interesting day after it released earnings. It reversed and closed upon its highs recording a bullish outside day in the process. It met resistance at the 50 day SMA but its chart sported a bullish engulfing candle.