Tight trading ends with pop higher

Index & Sector performance 11/18/14

The Market:

After multiple sessions trading in a tight range the broad indices broke-out to new highs.  It is worth noting that volume was again light but that has been the case throughout much of this recent rally after the mid October bottom.  In the after hours session the futures started to give back some of today’s gains so we will be looking to see if today was a false breakout which gives way to a pullback or if the indices can hold.

In individual sectors, HealthCare (XLV) led finishing 1.61% higher helped by strong session from Actavis (ACT) up 8.74%, Medtronic (MDT) up 4.74%, and Covidien (COV) up 3.68%.  A noticeable laggard in the XLV was Agilent Technologies (A) which finished down 1.07% after slightly missing EPS yesterday after the close.  Also have a strong session was Materials (XLB) which finished up 1.20%.  While all of the sectors on the WSC Scoreboard finished higher, Energy (XLE) was the laggard finishing up only 0.05% followed closely by Retail (XRT) up 0.10%.

Data beat across the board as both PPI and Core PPI finished above expectations as did the Housing Market Index.  Tomorrow we have additional housing data followed by the FOMC minutes later in the session.

Economic Calendar week of 11/17/14

Reporting EPS 11/19/14 Pre-Market:

Companies reporting EPS 11/19/14 pre-market

Analyst Comments:

Upgrades 11/18/14

Downgrades 11/18/14

Initiations 11/18/14

Price Target Changes 11/18/14