March 19, 2024

Market rollercoaster continues

Index & Sector performance 4/1/15 The Market: For those who do not track the futures you would think that today started off with a small gap that then snowballed into something much larger but the first shot lower was actually yesterday evening when the S&P futures dropped nearly 30 points in roughly an hour.  Amazingly the index recouped nearly all the losses by the open but then started to make its way back toward those overnight lows which is the action we saw today. Monday’s Wrap noted that we were looking for a pullback in the markets and that the…

Flat session with no catalysts

Index & Sector performance 3/23/15 The Market: A flat start to the week as the market appeared happy to meander without a strong catalyst to tip the balance one way or the other.  In an otherwise boring tape, the Transportation Index (IYT) is worth noting as it closed down 1.83%.  Most of the big names in the index were lower but Kansas City Southern (KSU) was the clear leader to the downside finishing 7.96% lower on the session after announcing reduced FY15 revenue guidance. Existing Home Sales came in weaker than expected and we will be watching to see if…

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…

Revisiting December’s lows

Index & Sector performance 1/6/15 The Market: Oil appears to still be affecting the broad market and causing caution in investors as crude, which lost the psychological $50 level yesterday, traded down over $2 in today’s session. Yesterday we remarked that a gap down in the morning could be a short term trading opportunity to the long side but unfortunately we opened flat to slightly up, negative the set-up, and then continue to crawl higher in the first hour of trading before the indices began to sharply lose ground.  Today’s sharp drop eventually found support at the mid-December trading lows…

Farewell QE3

Index & Sector performance 10/29/14 The Market: It was a relatively quiet session the majority of the day as traders were awaiting the 2pm FOMC rate decisions and statement.  As was expected, the Fed ended QE3 but continued to note that rates would remain low for a “considerable period”.  The initial reaction after the release was a move lower but the market had already been trending that way since the open and, after the initial drop, buyers stepped in and ultimately the indices closed only slightly lower. It was a mixed session across the WSC Scoreboard sectors with Materials (XLB)…

Early momentum fades

Index & Sector performance 8/11/14 The Market: Stocks started off the day building on Friday’s gains but near midday the S&P 500 topped out and then spent the rest of the day moving lower.  All 4 indices on the WSC Scoreboard finished the day higher but the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) were the clear winners with the IWM gaining nearly 1%. The leading sector on the day was the Consumer Staples (XLP) but the stock in the index that stood out the most was to the downside and that is Dean Foods (DF).  DF finished the day down…

Markets stop slide, fight back

Index & Sector performance 8/4/14 The Market: After two strong down days, all 4 indices on the WSC Scoreboard managed to find bottoms and rally with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge finishing the day 0.89% higher.  One note of caution, volume was on the light side when compared to the previous two sessions.  Our suggestion would be to watch the first major pullback after today’s move.  If it is orderly then the market likely has unfinished business to the upside, otherwise we will likely see another push lower. In individual sectors it was green across the board except…

GDP disappoints but market ignores

Index & Sector performance 4/30/14 The Market: As you can see in the table below, the U.S. Q1 GDP number came in well below expectations.  While Q1 was not expected to be a high growth quarter, clearly analysts did not expect a near negative number.  Certainly the colder than expected weather could have and likely did play a role but on our opinion you cannot completely blame a miss like this on the weather. So why might traders and investors be willing to look past this data besides the weather?  Possibly because a number like this allows the Fed to…

Early Gains quickly fade

Index & Sector performance 1/06/14 The Market: Pre-market optimism was met with early selling which took the S&P 500 from $137 on the open own to $1824 by midday.  The market bounced along crafting a bottom until roughly 2pm EST when the S&P managed to rally off the lows.  While it never made it back to the morning high, the S&P managed to rally back toward even on the day but then sold off in the last hour closing near the lows of the day. In economic news we saw Factory Orders and Services PMI come in as expected while…