Low vol narrow holiday trading range
Index & Sector performance 11/25/14 The Market: Another uneventful holiday trading session across all 4 major indices on the WSC Scoreboard. Action was also muted across the individual sectors with the exception of Energy (XLE) which lost 1.63%. For XLE traders our take is that the lows may hold but we would either be looking for an opportunity to buy lower or on a break above $89.25. In Economic data, estimated 3rd quarter GDP growth came in better than previously reported while Consumer Confidence and the Richmond Manufacturing Index both missed expectations. Tomorrow there is a slew of data including…
Russell leads overall dull session
Index & Sector performance 11/24/14 The Market: An overall dull session with the S&P 500 (SPY) and Dow (DIA) barely moving while the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) led. As is expected for the remainder of this shortened holiday week, volume was very light. In individual sectors it was Retail (XRT) posting another great session up 1.32%. Today the index was greatly helped by Outerwall (OUTR), operators of Coinstar and Redbox, which finished up 12.32%. Also chipping in was Best Buy (BBY) up 2.29% and Foot Locker (FL) up 3.45%. After spending much of the year down, the XRT…
Lots of data yields flat finish
Index & Sector performance 7/30/14 The Market: Lots of Economic Data/announcements in today’s session but when the dust settled it was surprisingly a flat session with the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) leading while the Dow (DIA) finished slightly lower and the S&P 500 (SPY) finished slightly higher. The leading sector on the WSC Scoreboard was Retail (XRT) finishing the day up 1% however Retail remains the only individual sector on the WSC Scoreboard that is down for the year. The laggard was the Utilities (XLU) and decisively so finishing the day down 1.69%. We remain interested in some…
FOMC minutes ease market concerns
Index & Sector performance 4/9/14 The Market: After bottoming and bouncing in yesterday’s session, the S&P 500 futures spend the majority of the overnight session consolidating in a tight range. This lead to an early breakout, retest, and continuation higher but it was after the FOMC minutes were released at 2pm ET when the strongest gains were realized. Concern the Fed would be aggressive with rate hikes subsided and traders rewarded the market with 1+% gains across the board with the Nasdaq leading the charge up 1.7%. Next on the economic data schedule is Unemployment Claims which are released at…
Window dressing or more to come?
Index & Sector performance 3/31/14 The Market: The Quarter ends with a nice up session which has some throwing around the term “window dressing”. While we do not necessarily disagree with the sentiment, we also believe price is the ultimate indicator and therefore today’s action has to be respected. Otherwise it is ultimately a continuation of the short term consolidation between the highs on the S&P 500 cash at $1883.97 and the 3/14/14 lows of $1839.57. In the very short term the futures appear to be flagging overnight and could look to next target the 1875ES region. Support is 1862ES…
Lots of movement, little results
Index & Sector performance 3/10/14 The Market: Today was a yet another choppy session but for day traders there was a great deal of opportunity. The S&P 500 emini ultimately moved 40 points between support and resistance while the S&P 500 cash index only managed to close down roughly a point for the day. Starting with Sunday evening’s trading the ES contract lost ground over night finding support at the $1868ES pivot and then rallied pre-market to the $1878ES pivot. Playing Pivot Pinball the ES tested the $1868ES support after the open to yet again hold and rally back toward…
A day of rest after 4 up
Index & Sector performance 2/12/14 The Market: This morning at StockTwits we noted that after four solid days higher traders should expect a consolidation day which is ultimately what ended up happening but not before the S&P rallied to the pivot at $1823.25ES. Traders should watch that level now as upside resistance and look to 1805-10 as support. The following noteworthy companies are scheduled to report earnings before tomorrow’s open: PEP, APA, DISCA, NLSN, HOT, TAP, BKW, AVP, NGLS, CAB, GNC, SON, AFSI, OWW Analyst Comments: The Game Plan:
Analyst Comments
Since breaking out of a trading range back in October 2013, Alcoa (AA) has been a strong performer gaining over 50%. With the stock trading around $9.24, Goldman Sachs upgraded AA to Buy with an $11 price target on 11/25/13 and later upped that target to $12 which AA reached in less than 2 months. This action has prompted Goldman Sachs to review AA again and instead of going to a Neutral, they are upping their price target once again this time to $15. We agree with Goldman that it appears AA has more left in the tank but it…
Retail sales beat, Unemployment drags
Index & Sector performance 12/12/13 The Market: The market continued picked up where it left losing more ground but not as dramatic as the 1% down yesterday. The majority of the losses where in the beginning part of the day with the market making the lows for the day around 12:30 pm EST and starting to rally. That rally halted around 3pm EST and the market used the last hour to sell off not quite making it back to the midday lows. In economic data, Retail Sales number beat expectations and with Core Sales doubling expectations posting a 0.4% and…
Market follows up gap with more gains
Index & Sector performance 9/17/13 The Market: The majority of today’s action was in the first half hour of trading when the S&P gaped slightly higher and then ran up seeing the majority of the days gains. The remainder of the day the market was able to hold those gains and drift higher on what looked to be an overall light volume day. In economic news, Core CPI came in as expected while headline CPI was actually less than expected with a 0.1% increase when 0.2% was expected. Remember headline reflects food and energy while core strips it out. Tomorrow…