Nasdaq Takes a Beating...

What was just a normal down day within a short term bull trend for the Dow was a beating for the Nasdaq today. The Nasdaq composite dived right for its 30DMA today, down by 3% while the Dow was down only 2.18%. 2.18% and 3% may not sound very different as numbers but if you look at the charts, you will see a big difference. That is of course the best thing about charts; they put numbers into perspective and context.

The Nasdaq composite is right on its 30 days moving average today and if it breaks below that line, it will end its short term bull trend officially. Such a failure around its 200 days moving average does signal the possible start of an intermediate pullback, the one we have been talking about over the past couple of weeks, if the 30DMA is broken. There was only 5 winning stocks in the Nasdaq composite today with APOL gaining 1.99% but correcting back down by over 2% after hours.

All of these coincided with the lower than expected retail sales number today (see stock market calendar). Yes, don't expect consumption to increase when jobs hadn't. This could go on for sometime.