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The Nasdaq composite’s record close Monday indicates more gains ahead, chart analysts said.
The Nasdaq composite and Nasdaq 100 are “both trying to break above their highs from around March and once they do that there’s not a lot of resistance. They’ve got quite a lot of room to run,” said Sameer Samana, global quantitative and technical strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
He said any level to watch beyond the record high would be a psychological round number such as 8,000, or more than 5 percent above Monday’s levels.
The Nasdaq climbed more than half a percent Monday to within half a percent of its all-time intraday high hit on March 13. The index also set a closing record of 7,606.46, helped by an all-time high in shares of Apple, the largest stock by market capitalization.
JC Parets of Allstarcharts.com said, “7,600 is my level. If we’re above that in the [Nasdaq] composite then I think we need to be very aggressively bullish Nasdaq. I think we’re going to 11,600.”
He added, “Meanwhile, Technology is breaking out of an 18-year base since the all-time highs in March of 2000.”
Information technology is the best performer in the S&P 500 and has thus far led the index in its modest climb for the year. As of Monday’s close, technology led the 10 other S&P 500 sectors with a 13.6 percent gain since January. The consumer discretionary sector — the second best-performing sector year to date — is up 9 percent.
Information technology has the largest weighting in the S&P 500 at 26 percent. The sector was also one of the largest contributors to earnings growth in the first quarter. As of June 1, the sector had reported 25.8 percent year-on-year earnings growth for the first quarter, according to CFRA.
“In contrast to the S&P, the Nasdaq’s new closing high reinforces the case that equities markets are incrementally improving/strengthening not weakening,” Robert Sluymer, technical strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors, wrote in an email to CNBC. “A progression of intermediate-term, multi-month correction lows are developing across most groups with Technology one of the first sectors to bottom and continue lead to the upside. Incrementally, most other sectors are following.“
Echoing the optimistic views on technology, Frank Cappelleri of Instinet told CNBC that seeing the Nasdaq approach its highest shows that the long-term uptrend remains intact.
“Let’s not forget, too, that the Small Caps have been getting a lot of deserved attention over the last weeks with the Russell 2000 first making a new high more than two weeks ago,” he said in an email.
