Earnings Weaklings:
Within technology this past week there were some familiar disappointments and some that were surprising. Perhaps investors were inspired by prior back-to-back positive, tepid earnings reactions up 1.5 and 3.8% on 7/20 and 4/20, but on Thursday IBM was back to its old ways losing almost 10%. WEEKLY volume was some of the largest seen in a few years. INTC was more confounding to me as the stock underwent a sizable hair cut of 12% Friday after its release, but the prior FIVE (and maybe more) all declined to the tune of 5.3, 5.3, 9.3, 10.6, and 16.2%. SNAP was a big setback after its reaction losing a quarter of its value. It had been trading well beforehand. Below is the chart of NFLX and it behaved in a brilliant fashion. It displayed follow-through Friday on a somewhat soft tech tape after Thursday’s rise of 4.5%. The stock has gained ground 8 of the last 10 weeks accompanied by solid volume trends. It has put the rough range between the very round 500-600 numbers since last summer in the rearview mirror.