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…

Yellen sends stocks screaming, dollar dropping

Index & Sector performance 3/18/15 The Market: After the FOMC rate decision at 2pm ET, the S&P 500 cash index rallied nearly 40 points from the lows to the highs and did so, astonishingly, in less than 2 hours but the more impressive move may have been in the U.S. Dollar which moved strongly lower and continued its decline in the after hours tagging 1.10 in the EUR/USD exchange after trading below 1.05 Monday.  The U.S. Dollar has shown remarkable strength on late so it is not surprising to see a give back and considering how far how fast we…

HealthCare gains as market slides

Index & Sector performance 3/4/15 The Market: Ultimately, only a a small sell off in the markets after the S&P 500 rallied off the lows which coincided nicely with the upward sloping 20 day SMA.  Aggressive traders could certainly look to use today’s low to trade against. In Individual sectors, HealthCare (XLV) was the lone gainer finishing up 0.48% while the Industrials (XLI) led to the downside finishing 0.78% lower followed closely by Consumer Staples (XLP) and Financials (XLF) which finished down 0.70% and 0.61% respectively.  The biggest loser so far for 2015 is the Utilities (XLU) which is now…

QQQ & IWM reach new highs

Index & Sector performance 2/26/15 The Market: More churn today in the markets but again the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) showed more strength than the S&P 500 (SPY) with the QQQ and IWM reaching new 52-week closing highs on the session. Crude oil lost over 5% today which helped send the Energy (XLE) sector 1.88% lower.  We noted in our 2/18/15 nightly recap when the XLE was trading above $81 that we would look for a pullback toward $78 as a buying opportunity.  Closing today at $79.35, we would ideally like to see lower levels before dipping into…

Higher inflation ahead of Fed

Index & Sector performance 6/17/14 The Market: In today’s Economic news, CPI came in higher than expected while the Building Permits and Housing Starts were below estimates.  The initial reaction off this data sent the S&P 500 futures trading lower but ultimately the index bottomed before the open and continued higher the remainder of the day. Checking the WSC scoreboard the Russell 2000 led the charge while the other indices closed flat or slightly higher.  In individual sectors, the Financials (XLF) posting a 1.02% gain and the Retailers (XRT) finishing up 0.87% were the strongest groups.  In the Financials, MetLife…

Tech stocks lead sell-off

Index & Sector performance 5/6/14 The Market: Last night we noted 1872ES as a key level to watch.  If it held as overnight support then the index could look to target Friday’s 1886ES highs but if lost then we could see Monday’s lows of 1860.50ES tested and then 1850ES.   In overnight trading the S&P was only able to reach 1881.50ES falling short of Friday’s highs and by the open the futures were sitting at our key 1872ES level.  After some initial jostling around the 1872ES level, the index started to roll over in midday trading reaching as low as…

The Market’s all a TWTR

Index & Sector performance 11/4/13 The Market: A gap higher in the S&P was quickly sold down to 11:30 am EST where the market found support and then rallied to the close making new highs for the day in the final few minutes. In economic data Factory orders came in lighter than expected and while there was some Fed speak, nothing too groundbreaking.  Tomorrow we see ISM and Economic Optimism.  Looming Thursday is the Unemployment Claims data which has a very low estimate and looks like a softball for the markets to beat.  A big miss with already low expectations…

4 days down and counting…..

Index & Sector performance 9/24/13 The Market: The S&P 500 came into the day trying to snap a 3 day losing streak with even the smallest of gains but was unable to and after spending some time in positive territory, eventually lost ground and closed down for the 4th day in a row. In economic news the Case Shiller Index showed prices come in at the expected 12.4% increase year over year and slightly above expectations with a 1% month over month reading.  Richmond Manufacturing was well below expectations but generally not considered significant to the market and Consumer Confidence…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +87.31 (+0.58%) to 15,056.20; S&P 500 +8.46 (+0.52%) to 1,625.96; NASDAQ -2.48 (-0.08%) to 2,952.88 My idea of an up morning to noon EST time resulting in a sell off looked good as the S&P 500 initially peaking around 10am EST and then started to sell off losing about 7 points in 15 minutes.  That ultimately marked the lows for the day and the bulls stepped in buying the market higher and we finally closed 9 points off of those lows leaving the SPY ETF up over 14% YTD. Electronic Arts (EA) announced a deal with Disney (DIS) to partner on Star Wars video games. …