Sector Wrap - Semis Higher: BRCM, ALTR, CREE

Published on Thursday, 12 January 2012 16:51 Written by Christopher Lynn

New York, January 12th (TradersHuddle.com) - The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index traded higher at $391.75, representing 1% from its previous close. The semiconductor index exhibited strong upside with 18 index components on the plus side.

Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) was the top performer of the semis, as it traded at $32.66, which represents 5.15%. from the previous trading session. Shares of Broadcom, the provider of chips that enable broadband digital data transmission have defined support at $27.59 and resistance at $31.76.

Altera (NASDAQ:ALTR) was also among the top performers, closing the trading session at $38.63 representing 2.9% from its previous close. Altera, the maker of programmable logic devices has calculated support and resistance levels at $36.66 and $38.65 respectively. The other top performer of the semis was Cree (NASDAQ:CREE), which traded at $23.82 representing 2.58% from the previous trading session.

The semis' worst performers include KLA-Tencor (NASDAQ:KLAC) that traded at $48.8 or -1.05% from the previous close. Shares of KLA-Tencor, the maker of yield management and process monitoring systems for the semiconductor industry have defined support at $46.75 and resistance at $49.29. Also among the worst performers was Cirrus Logic (NASDAQ:CRUS), which closed at $20.01 representing -0.94% from the previous trading session.

Today, the semis outperformed the broad market index S&P 500.