March 19, 2024

The NightCap

The Market: The market continues to grind higher with the Russell 2000 (IWM) trying to play catch-up of late. Energy (XLE) led all sectors in today’s trading, again, and has been one of the hottest sectors of late although still down nearly -10% YTD. A relatively big data week with ISM Monday, Fed speak & ADP tomorrow, Unemployment Claims Thursday, and official Jobs data on Friday.  Traders concerned about the Fed and if we will see a December rate hike should be paying attention to this week’s data.       Reported EPS 11/3/15 After the Close:   Reporting EPS…

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…

Market finishes near lows

Index & Sector performance 5/26/15 The Market: A strong down day for the market which saw all the major market indices on the WSC Scoreboard finish down over 1% on the session near the lows for the day.  The futures are up in the after hours session but they will have to prove that this is not just a relief bounce. Utilities (XLU), Consumer Discretionary (XLY), and Consumer Staples (XLP) were the relative out-performers finishing down 0.63%, 0.75%, and 0.79% respectively.  After reaching a high of $62.58 on 5/6/15, Crude Oil is back below $60/barrel after losing 3% in today’s…

Stocks recover after early slide

Index & Sector performance 3/26/15 The Market: Today’s session started of much worse than it ended with the futures losing ground in the overnight and early session causing a gap down which continued lower in early trading but manged to recover and stage a midday rally which even saw all 4 broad indices spend time up on the day.  In global news, traders were focused on Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Yemen which helped Crude Oil traded over $51 u more than 3% on the session. We would not be signaling that the coast is clear yet and see risk in…

Greece rules headlines in slow session

Index & Sector performance 2/9/15 The Market: Losses across the WSC Scoreboard with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the way followed by the Dow (DIA), which was affected by McDonald’s (MCD) finishing down 1.35% after reporting a drop in January sales of 1.8%.  Otherwise traders seem focused on the continued fighting between Greece and the Eurozone. Energy was the only sector on the WSC Scoreboard to finish higher but it wasn’t by much and was helped by Oil continuing its recovery.  Today’s biggest laggard was HeathCare (XLV) which finished down 1.18% followed by Transportation (IYT) down 0.99% and Utilities (XLU)…

XLE hit hard on overall mixed session

Index & Sector performance 10/27/14 The Market: A rumor Thursday of a doctor infected with the Ebola virus being rushed to an NYC hospital helped take the market off the highs and then in Thursday’s overnight session it was confirmed that the doctor indeed had Ebola which sent the futures spiking lower but by Friday morning they were off the lows from the overnight session and marched higher closing near Thursday’s intraday highs. Today was much more of a muted consolidation session with the S&P 500 cash index remaining within a roughly 13 point range which while not historically small…

Intraday swing leave only small gains

Index & Sector performance 4/28/14 The Market: After moving slightly higher in the overnight and early trading, the S&P 500 quickly dropped in the midday session before finding a bottom around 1:30 pm ET.  While the S&P fell a few points short of making it back to the earlier intraday highs, it did manage to post a small gain on the day.   The Dow led the major indices helped by a 4.2% gain from Pfizer (PFE) while the Russell 2000 closed slightly down on the day. Many big name stocks in the news including the aforementioned Pfizer (PFE) who…

The Taper begins…

Index & Sector performance 12/18/13 The Market: A strong day in the market with the gains all coming after the 2 pm EST FOMC report.   The S&P 500 was in a holding pattern until just before the report when it started to drop lower.  After the report there was a quick spike lower (likely on the headline of bond buying decreasing) and the S&P 500 tagged the 50 day SMA where the index then bottomed and ripped higher. From Peak to Trough the S&P 500 gained rouhgly43 points! In economic news today we saw Housing Starts handily beat expectations (1.09M…