Closing Stats

Once again we have another day with a dominant Price/Volume relationship and once again it is Price Up/Volume Down, which wasn't so much of a problem yesterday, but considering today's advance, I really think volume should have picked up. This is one reason I would much preferred to see a pullback today then the volatile choppy EOD trade this afternoon.

The NYSE components came in at 3122 close up/volume down, in second place 1790 close up/volume up-that may be the silver lining so to speak. In the other two relationships, 1720 stocks closed down inclusive of rising and falling volume.

The Dow-30 saw 21 close up on declining volume and 5 close up on heavier volume-there were 4 decliners.

The NASDAQ 100 had 62 stocks close up on falling volume and 30 stocks up on rising volume with a total of a mere 7 decliners.

The S&P-500 299 close up on falling volume and 142 close up on rising volume, there were 50 decliners.

Finally the Russell 2000 had 1029 close up on falling volume and 336 up on rising volume with a total of 462 decliners.

The late day trade was starting to break down, but a rumor about MSFT sent the stock, AAPL and tech in general higher in to the close.

Considering the rumor (Steve Balmer is stepping down) is totally unconfirmed, this almost seemed like a "juice the market into the close" scenario. As I said earlier in the afternoon, higher trade would have me skeptical, especially considering the market's overall volume which has fallen for the last two days in to a market advance that looks a lot like short covering, which it obviously isn't at this point.

The lack of pullback in this move and the lower volume is most likely due to High Frequency Trading, short covering would see a rise in volume and we really haven't taken out an important technical level yet, except for the NASDAQ 100 and R2K, but since the other averages are not trading in line with them, short sellers will still have their doubts until confirmation is seen.

I'd like to see a pullback of some consequence, followed by an advance by all the major averages through resistance. If this happens, and Greece will be a big part of the if, we'll need to check the breakout for confirmation and make sure it's not a hollow or false move. Tomorrow will most likely be one of the most important days of the year.