Sector Wrap - Semis Lower: VECO, NVDA, POWI

Published on Thursday, 17 May 2012 16:51 Written by Christian Paolinetti

New York, May 17th (TradersHuddle.com) - The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index traded lower at $371.43, representing -2.21% from its previous close. The semiconductor index tumbled with 24 index components on the negative side.

Veeco Instruments (NASDAQ:VECO) was the top performer of the semis, as it traded at $34.97, which represents 1.92%. from the previous trading session. Shares of Veeco Instruments, the provider of process equipment solutions have defined support at $26.50 and resistance at $37.87.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) was also among the top performers, closing the trading session at $12.85 representing 0.9% from its previous close. NVIDIA, the world leader in visual computing technologies has calculated support and resistance levels at $12.12 and $13.68 respectively. The other top performer of the semis was Power Integrations (NASDAQ:POWI), which traded at $42.19 representing 0.26% from the previous trading session.

The semis' worst performers include MEMC Electronic Materials (NYSE:WFR) that traded at $1.68 or -21.13% from the previous close. Shares of MEMC Electronic Materials, the silicon wafers producer have defined support at $2.13 and resistance at $3.77. Also among the worst performers was Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD), which closed at $6.13 representing -4.15% from the previous trading session.

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