Eoin Treacy's view The Nasdaq-100 pulled back sharply from its January high but found support above the 200-day moving average and continues to rally back to test the peak near1900. A sustained move below 1780 would now be required to question scope for further higher to lateral ranging.

Using the Chart Library's High/Low filter, I ascertained that 31 shares in the Index are posting at least new 3-month highs and 6 of these are posting new all-time highs. Here is a list of the results.

I was intrigued by these figures and decided to click through the constituents of the Index. I did this by putting all the members of the Index into a section in my Favourites and used the 'View All Charts' feature which tiles 7 charts to a page to quickly move through the array.

Also see Comment of the Day on October 15th 2009 and July 21st 2009 both of which have now been released into the public archive following the customary four-month delay.


It became obvious that pharmaceutical, retail and technology shares dominated the leaders. I used a 5-year candle chart with a 200-day exponential moving average for my first click through, but there were nearly 40 charts I thought of as interesting. This was unworkable for the purposes of my analysis so I widened the date range. Since the Nasdaq peaked a decade ago, I decided to look at 20-year weekly charts in order to gain some additional perspective.

Altera Corp bottomed in 2002 and has been ranging mostly above $15 since 2003. It is now testing the upper side of the nearly 7-year base and while a little overextended in the short-term a sustained move below $20.50 would be required to limit scope for a successful upward break over the medium term.

Citrix Systems also bottomed in 2002 and built a base mostly below $40 until December when it broke upwards. It has been consolidating below the 2006 and 2007 highs since January and a sustained move back below $40 would be required to question potential for additional upside over the medium term.

Check Point Software Technology completed its base in August, consolidated in the region of the upper side for a couple of months and rallied smartly to near $35. It is currently consolidating this advance in a relatively steady mean reversion and a sustained move below $30 would be required to question potential for further medium-term upside.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals rallied impressively in 2005 before hitting a medium-term peak near $40. It has been consolidating this move since and plotted a progression of higher reaction lows since March 2008. A sustained below $36 would be required to question medium-term upside potential.

Juniper Networks remains in a long-term base and needs to sustain a move above $32 to indicate a return to medium-term demand dominance.

Oracle broke upwards to a new recovery high in December, found support in the region of the previous peak in January and would need to sustain a move below $22 to question scope for further medium-term upside.

Both Apple and Amazon recently found support in the region of prior highs and would need to sustain moves below their February lows to question potential for additional higher to lateral ranging.