March 19, 2024

Market churns while XLU heads lower

Index & Sector performance 2/25/15 The Market: Another day of churn as the market continues to grind with an upward bias.  As we posted over at StockTwits we are starting to see a lot of negative divergence setting up on the MACD.  Divergence is not a trigger itself but is showing signs that each move higher comes with less momentum and excitement. Utilities (XLU) was the leader to the downside and a name we recently posted about in the Charts section.   After seeing a lot of people bullish on the name, we laid the road map we felt the Bulls…

S&P snaps 2 day losing streak

Index & Sector performance 2/10/15 The Market: The S&P 500 snapped a 2 day losing streak with a solid rally closing up over 1% on the session while the NASDAQ led the charge finishing up over 1.50% helped by Apple (AAPL) which closed at a fresh all time highs.  The Russell 2000 (IWM) was the laggard but still managed to finish up 0.67%. All the sectors on the WSC Scoreboard were higher with the exception of Energy (XLE) which was taking its cue from Crude’s slide today after running into the 50 day SMA.  Utilities (XLU) was the biggest gainer…

Quiet start to the month

Index & Sector performance 11/3/14 The Market: The market started the day slightly higher building on last week’s extremely strong session but the market ran out of steam in the short term and the S&P 500 started pulling back in afternoon trading finishing flat on the session.  All in all it was a low volume quiet session but the Bulls can point to the fact that they didn’t give ground after reaching new highs. We do not expect the remainder of the month to be as quiet as today and would plan for swings in both directions much like October…

Short week, low vol, mixed results

Index & Sector performance 6/30/14 The Market: An overall mixed session saw the Russell 2000 and NASDAQ finish higher while the Dow and S&P 500 finished slightly lower.  Volume was down which will likely be a trend this shortened holiday trading week. In Individual sectors, the Utilities (XLU) led and earlier in the session the Transportation sector (IYT) was a relatively close second but a late day sell off put it just behind the Materials (XLB) and in-line with Retail (XRT).  The largest gainer in the Utilities was Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (PNW) which finished up 2.41% and looks like…

Low volume day follows the trend

Index & Sector performance 11/22/13 The Market: The market made solid gains trending higher all day to close over $1800 in the S&P 500.  If there was anything concerning about today’s rally, it was the volume which seemed very light but seeing a market move in the direction of the trend on low volume days is not uncommon. There was not much on the Economic data front today besides some fed speak but Thursday the 21st was big.  Unemployment Claims came in better than expected posting 10K below (323K vs 333K) expectations while the previous week was adjusted slightly higher…

Waiting on Washington

Index & Sector performance 9/30/13 The Market: The lack of a deal from Washington on the impending government shutdown seemed to eight on trader’s mind.  While the S&P was able to rally after a gap down in early trading, the rally was short lived and around 1:30 pm EST the market again lost ground although was able to remain above the early morning lows In economic data we had Chicago PMI which came in slight better than expected with a 55.7 reading when 54.5 was expected.  Tomorrow we have Final Manufacturing PMI, ISM, Construction spending and Total Vehicle Sales. In…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +48.92 (+0.32%) to 15,105.12; S&P 500 +6.73 (+0.41%) to 1,632.69; NASDAQ +15.36 (+0.52%) to 2,968.24 The market continues to grind higher during.  Today started with a gap lower which like many others in the past was quickly bought up and sent to new highs.  There was a brief downdraft late in the day sending the markets back down toward even on the day but yet again the bulls stepped in and not only regained all those late losses but again extended higher into the close.  Tomorrow we have  Unemployment claims and I show estimates at 333K with a reminder that last week’s number was the…