March 19, 2024

Oil gets crushes while market dips

The Market: A small down day which could have looked worse if not for a late day rally off the lows.  Interesting to see the leaders to the downside were the Dow (DIA) and Russell 2000 (IWM).  We were looking for the market to close just off the lows and then gap down tomorrow for a short-term long opportunity but today’s end of day rally has changed that set-up. Overall we remain cautious on the broad market and believe the choppy trading of late will continue. Energy (XLE) led to the downside, again, as crude oil continues to slide reaching…

Sellers appear on slow news day

The Market: An initial gap down in the morning found buyers but only to roughly flat on the session when the seller stepped back in and controlled the remainder of the day with all 4 of the WSC Scoreboard main indices finishing lower led by the Dow (DIA) while closed down nearly 1%. All of the WSC Scoreboard sectors were lower on the session with the largest losses realized in Transportation (IYT), Matierials (XLB) and Heath Care (XLV). Not many comments tonight but we would be cautious here.  The market looks to be oversold in the short term and due…

S&P showing signs of indecision

Index & Sector performance 11/13/14 The Market: The NASDAQ (QQQ) led today’s trading  while the Russell 2000 (IWM) was the clear laggard.  The S&P 500 (SPY) is refusing to break with the exception of very small sharp pullbacks which are short lived.  Volume over the past two days remains light although is an uptick from earlier in the week.  We view the current action as indecision as the SPY wrestles with price discovery and ultimately expect lower levels to be seen. Energy (XLE) led the WSC Scoreboard sectors lower giving back some of the recent hard fought gains but did…

Late rally masks tough session

Index & Sector performance 10/15/14 The Market: A very volatile session in today’s trading which saw the S&P 500 (SPY) down 3% before a sharp last hour rally helped the index only finish down 0.75%.  Without that late rally, the SPY would have been down year-to-date at the close.  As has been the case of late, the Russell 2000 (IWM) outperformed finishing the session up over 1%. The best performing sector in today’s session was Energy (XLE).  Like the SPY, the XLE was down much more earlier in the session but finished the session up 0.76% after a strong last…

Utilities shine amidst sea of red

Index & Sector performance 10/1/14 The Market: All four of the main indices on the WSC Scoreboard finished well into negative territory with the NASDAQ (QQQ) leading the charge down 1.60%. In individual sectors it was the Utilities (XLU) that stood out closing 0.57% higher while the rest of the list was well into negative territory.  It was a broad rally across the XLU with many stocks participating but some noteworthy gainers were Exelon (EXC) up 1.41%, Southern (SO) up 1.01%, and NRG Energy (NRG) up 2.33%.  EXC has been a favorite of ours but we would also watch SO…

EPS should lead trading

Index & Sector performance 7/21/14 The Market: Slow start to the week saw the S&P futures down over 10 points in early trading only to rally back and finish the day relatively flat on the session.  The best performer of the 4 broad indices was the NASDAQ (QQQ) but all-in-all it was a low volume relatively uneventful start to the week. With not much scheduled in terms of Economic data this week (see schedule below), eyes will be firmly fixed on the slew of earnings coming out.  Below is the list of confirmed pre-market reports for 7/22/14 and the remainder…