Financial earnings remain focus for week
Index & Sector performance 7/14/14 The Market: All four major indices on the WSC Scoreboard finished equally higher in today’s action. We continue to be most interested in the Russell 2000 (IWM) and the fact that the Small Caps are not enjoying as solid of a year as the other major indices. We ultimately believe for further gains the small caps need to be involved. In individual sectors the WSC Scoreboard was led by Energy (XLE) which finished up 0.87%. Also finishing higher on the WSC Scoreboard was the Financials (XLF) which saw Citigroup (C) beat earnings this morning and…
Very quiet start to the week
Index & Sector performance 7/7/14 The Market: Today was a very quiet trading session which saw the market give back some of last week’s holiday gains. Looking over the Economic Calendar, this is a light data week and while Alcoa (AA) will kick off earnings season tomorrow after the close it will still be a while before we are in the thick of earnings season. We are watching the Russell 2000 (IWM) closely. In good times you expect to see the Tech Stocks and Small caps lead. While the NASDAQ (QQQ) has come back to do its part this year,…
Early optimism wanes
Index & Sector performance 6/24/14 The Market: After a very tight trading range in the overnight session, the market moved higher after the New Home Sales and Consumer Confidence data was released at 10 am ET. Both handily beat estimates rising to their best levels in 6 years, however, this optimism proved to be short lived as the S&P 500 topped in midday trading and spent the remainder of the day losing ground finally finishing 12 points lower in the S&P 500 cash index and roughly 20 points off the intraday highs. In individual sectors, Energy (XLE) clearly led all…
Early volatility wanes, dull day
Index & Sector performance 6/2/14 The Market: Overall a quiet day in the market if you look at the overall performance but that does not show the early volatility the market saw when the S&P 500 futures dropped roughly 10 points at the open to only “V” bottom and spike back up near where the drop occurred. After that it was tight trading the rest of the day leaving a small up day in the Dow & S&P with the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 closing on the downside. Today there was some drama around ISM Manufacturing PMI after it was…
Tech & Small Cap lead, S&P new highs
Index & Sector performance 5/27/14 The Market: After a lull in Economic releases last week and a Holiday Monday, today started with a slew of Economic data which posted better than expected results for Durable Goods orders, Home Price Index, and Flash Services PMI. The S&P which was already trading slightly higher preceded to rally into the early morning before seeing a midday dip followed by an end of day rally that took the S&P500 futures back to and slightly above the earlier highs. Tomorrow we get a break from Economic news but Thursday will be another big day with…
Reason or Excuse?
Index & Sector performance 3/3/14 The Market: Depending on your bias you likely either believe the events transpiring with Russia “scared” the market causing it to drop today or you believe the drop was already in the cards based on the technicals and the Russian incident just gives the news something concrete to point to as the cause. While we tend to be much more in the latter than former camp, we also subscribe to the believe it doesn’t really matter as in either case we are left with what happened and the decision what to do now. The S&P…
Thank you to our Vets!
Index & Sector performance DATE The Market: Any given day stocks will make big moves but today with the bond market closed in observance of Veteran’s Day the broad markets seemed happy to consolidate. Do not be surprised if today’s action is the calm before a strong directional move. Being that today was a Bank Holiday, there was no government economic data announced. We did see the NFIB Small Business Index come in slightly below expectations posting a 91.6 when 93.5 was expected. Story Stocks: Merger Monday as ViroPharma (VPHM) agreed to be acquired by UK drugmaker Shire (SHPG). The…