Saturday, March 26, 2005

NASDAQ Range

The chart below shows the NASDAQ. To determine support/resistance in the near-term, you can use Fibonacci retracement, but this doesn't always work well when the high-low values are fairly far apart. As an alternative, I have used the Raff Regression Channel Lines tool from StockCharts.com (this is sixth top button from the right on the annotation screen).

Absent the Raff Regression Channel tool, the next possible target for NASDAQ is its 200-day MA at 1992.85. The Raff Regression Channel indicates a slightly different support level, the Raff lower bound of about 1960, which is fairly close to the short-term top from early October of last year.

Note that the RSI is displaying an oversold reading at present, as oversold as in late January. So, it remains to be seen whether we will be testing support. Also, the NASDAQ continues to underperform the overall stock market (S&P 500).

According to the Raff Regression Channel, resistance is currently around 2080 (its upper channel). A prerequisite for moving there is that the NASDAQ begin outperforming the overall stock market in the next few weeks.

How can you determine if this is likely? Examine the performance of some of the major components of the NASDAQ. Right now, the semiconductor stocks (SMH) might be ready to break out, which would bode well for the NASDAQ.

Examing the chart of SMH and see if you think it will likely break out. Follow its actual behavior over the next week or two and track the interrelationships between the SMH and NASDAQ over that period.

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