ChartSmarter Friday Game Plan 1/29/16

Markets gyrated between gains and losses in the morning hours before settling with mediocre gains. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 seem to be having strong tug of wars at the round numbers of 4500 and 1900 respectively. For the benchmarks hanging in there, bulls can be cautiously optimistic after the AAPL debacle, the Fed not leaving another rate hike off the table, shrugging off a 6% China drop Tuesday. They are, at the moment, absorbing the body blows. That being said they have fallen precipitously and the longer they stay around the 4500 and 1900 numbers the more likely they are to head south. Heading into Friday the Nasdaq is lower by 1.8% and the S&P 500 by .6% for the week. Earnings continue to roll in at a frantic pace and today for the most part the message was benign. Of course there has been some bifurcation and the semis seem to be some of the most confused. We all know the scare INTC provided after reporting on 1/15 falling more than 9%. On Thursday reactions came from CAVM CRUS TXN all which advanced, and QCOM INVN and TER dropped. Perhaps we can coin the phrase “there are death, taxes and QCOM will fall after releasing numbers”. Today it slumped more than 8%, its SIXTH consecutive fall after losing 15.2, 3.7, .9, 10.3 and 8.6% on 11/5, 7/23, 4/23, 1/29 and 11/6/15. We unexpectedly witnessed CAT saying they saw strength and the stock rose almost 5%. Samsung discussed seeing uncertainty as AAPL did as well this week. Perhaps one of the more interesting moves was the divergence between EBAY and spinoff PYPL. EBAY, another “old tech” play that has slumped recently (AAPL INTC and today JNPR joined the party) slipped double digits after meeting 200 day SMA resistance. It did fill in a gap almost to the penny on 1/20 from 10/21 but still that was not enough. PYPL which seems to have put in a triple bottom near the round 30 number gained better than 8% meeting 50 day SMA resistance. Healthcare was the only sector in the red today and below is a chart of ANAC (and how it appeared in our Tuesday 1/19 Game Plan) which we were bullish on if it held the round 90 number, but also recommended a short below a bearish long descending triangle pattern.