When Leaders Lose Support

This column was originally published on RealMoney on Dec. 22 at 8:01 a.m. EST. It's being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers. For more information about subscribing to RealMoney, please click here.

Certain leaders in certain sectors tell us whether a market is healthy in the short term. For instance, among the semiconductors, we look to Intel (INTC Quote), Broadcom (BRCM Quote) or maybe even Texas Instruments (TXN Quote).

For brokers or financials, we go to Goldman Sachs (GS Quote) or Bear Stearns (BSC Quote). When we think of an important sector like the transports, we think first of the giants like FedEx (FDX Quote). When we think of tech, we think of the leader of leaders: Apple (AAPL Quote).

On Wednesday and Thursday in the Columnist Conversation, I posted about the erosion of Apple as it failed on its 60-minute chart to take back its lost 50-day exponential moving average. It fell hard when it backtested this level. ...