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Nasdaq Leads Mixed Session As China Names Rise; AMD Rallies Ahead Of Earnings

The Nasdaq composite held a decent gain in afternoon trading but was off session highs. The Nasdaq jumped nearly 1% intraday, helped by strength in Chinese stocks overnight. Several Chinese stocks outperformed in the Nasdaq 100, including Ctrip.com (CTRP), JD.com (JD), NetEase (NTES) and Baidu (BIDU).

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The Nasdaq was up 0.6% in afternoon trading. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 0.4% and the S&P 500 eased 0.2%. The Russell 2000 small-cap index edged slightly higher. Volume on the NYSE and Nasdaq was tracking lower than Friday's levels, more so on the NYSE.

The Shanghai Composite soared 4.1% overnight on hopes of additional stimulus measures. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng rose 2.3%. But like U.S. indexes, Asian indexes are still in the early stages of a rally attempt that hasn't been confirmed yet. In other words, the trend is down until proven otherwise.

Shares of Alibaba (BABA) jumped 4% to around 148.50, but like most other China stocks, a lot of technical damage has been down that will take some time to repair. That said, a breakout over a trend line is possible for Alibaba. An aggressive entry could come about if Alibaba takes out the 155 level with conviction.

Other Nasdaq Winners

FANG stock and Leaderboard name Amazon.com (AMZN) outperformed ahead of its earnings report Thursday after the close. Compared to other technology stocks, Amazon's pullback has been fairly well contained. It's only about 12% off its high. Note that the stock's Accumulation/Distribution Rating has slumped to E, an indication of heavy institutional in recent weeks.

It's also been a relatively tame pullback so far for enterprise software stock ServiceNow (NOW). Shares popped nearly 2% in heavy volume. Its chart looks very similar to Amazon's, with shares trading below the 50-day moving average but above the 200-day line.

Innovator IBD 50 (FFTY), which tracks the performance of top growth stocks in the stock market, outperformed with a 1.3% gain. Top gainers in the IBD 50 included Brazil-based PagSeguro Digital (PAGS), Match Group (MTCH), NetApp (NTAP) and CyberArk (CYBR). Gains ranged from 2% to 4%.

Security software stocks outperformed after technology news provider The Information reported that Facebook (FB) has expressed interest in acquiring a security software firm.

Besides security software, four other software-related industry groups were up 1.5% or more, but actionable names are hard to find after nasty sell-offs.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was another strong gainer in the IBD 50 ahead of its earnings report Wednesday after the close. The chip leader was featured in the latest Earnings Preview column as a possible bullish earnings option trade.

Heavy-volume gainers included Jacobs Engineering (JEC). Jacobs gapped above its 50-day moving average, rising more than 6%, on news it's selling its energy, chemicals and resources to Australian firm WorleyParsons for $3.3 billion.

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