US STOCKS-Restaurant stocks have bullish technicals -MKM

By Ryan Vlastelica

NEW YORK, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Shares (Berlin: DI6.BE - news) of restaurant companies were mostly lower on Tuesday, though MKM Partners wrote that a number of names in the space appeared poised to outperform on a technical basis.

Jack in the Box Inc (NasdaqGS: JACK - news) hit its second all-time high in as many days on Tuesday, up 1.2 percent to $68.50 and "breaking out of a six month base," wrote Jonathan Krinsky, MKM's chief market technician in Greenwich, Connecticut. The stock "now looks to have room up to the mid $70s."

MKM said it would look to be long on six restaurant stocks for the medium-term, including Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI - news) , Domino's Pizza and Brinker International (NYSE: EAT - news) .

Domino's "continues to work through a medium-term base. It is just now breaking out and should be able to challenge and exceed prior highs above $80," Krinsky wrote.

Shares of Domino's dipped 0.9 percent to $76.94, while Darden was down 0.8 percent to $51.58.

Index snapshot at 10:40 EDT:

* S&P 500 was rising 1 points, or 0.05 percent.

* Nasdaq Comp was losing 1.67 points, or 0.04 percent.

* Dow industrials was adding 8.67 points, or 0.05 percent.

* Russell 2000 was falling 5.58 points, or 0.5 percent.

* S&P MidCap was dropping 6.36 points, or 0.46 percent.

* S&P SmallCap was losing 2.64 points, or 0.41 percent. (Editing by Nick Zieminski)