The major market averages rose on higher volume, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Indexes showing some churning action as they gave up all of their gains in the last 20 minutes of trade. The NASDAQ led the way yesterday with a 0.58% gain on heavier volume as big-stock NASDAQ names like Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Baidu (BIDU), and Priceline.com (PCLN) all move higher. These stocks are all looking to open higher this morning.
NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) flashed a pocket pivot yesterday as it broke out of a short three-week flag formation. This follows a buyable gap-up move that occurred after the company announced strong earnings about a month ago. Institutional sponsorship has risen over the last 6 quarters, ROE 43.5%, earnings are accelerating.
Infoblox (BLOX) is gapping lower in pre-market trade after a weak earnings report yesterday after-hours. Despite the stock's impressive pocket pivot in yesterday's trade, BLOX had two above average volume days where it cut through its 50-day moving average, and that, together with impending earnings, underscored the higher risk in calling its pocket pivot actionable.
Expect light trading ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which will be briefly interrupted on Friday with a shortened half-day trading session. There is a statistical tendency for such periods to be bullish, but know that any negative news could push markets briefly lower as occurred the day after Thanksgiving in 2009 when the NASDAQ gapped down and closed lower on the day by -1.73% on negative news coming out of Europe.