April 26, 2024

Strong start with new highs

Index & Sector performance 5/12/14 The Market: A strong start to the week as a broad based rally in the market was led by the Russell 2000 (IWM) up 2.27% and the NASDAQ 100 (QQQ) up 1.65% while the Dow and S&P reached new closing highs.  The two stand out sectors were Retail (XRT) and the Transportation (IYT) while the Utilities (XLU) lagged closing down 0.92% but remain the largest gainer YTD. We have much more economic data this week and tomorrow all eyes will be on Retail Sales which is released before the open.  Headline sales are expected up…

How will traders position for weekend?

Index & Sector performance 4/10/14 The Market: Today the market not only took back the gains realized yesterday off the FOMC minutes but also the gains from Tuesday’s session leaving fresh closing lows for the week on a roughly 40 point down day in the S&P 500. With only one day remaining in the week, it will be very interesting to see how trader’s position tomorrow ahead of the weekend.  We have a hard time believing that traders will be anxious to position long going into the weekend after today.  We will be increasingly suspect of any early morning to…

Early dip met with strong buying

Index & Sector performance 2/13/14 The Market: The markets began to dip overnight and into early morning trading.  Weaker than expected economic data didn’t help but just as the market officially opened the bottom was put in and the S&P 500 spent the remainder of the day rallying only taking a short midday break before continuing on to made the highs of the day near the close.   The following noteworthy companies are scheduled to report earnings before tomorrow’s open: ALE, BAM, COTY, CPB, DTE, H, IPG, IPGP, ITT, JMP, LECO, LPNT, MINI, POR, RRGB, SJM, SNI, TRW, VFC, VTR,…

Beige Book helps market off lows

Index & Sector performance 12/4/13 The Market: The S&P 500 started with a gap down which was quickly bought and rallied to slightly positive on the day but that rally topped at 11am EST and made its way back down to and through the earlier lows.  The market found a bottom prior to the Beige Book coming out but the release did not hurt the rally and the S&P 500 finished near flat on the day and above the 20 day SMA. In economic news we saw ADP Non-Farm Employment Change come in much better than expected posting a 215K…

A low volume flat session

Index & Sector performance 11/25/13 The Market: Monday’s trading started with some optimism but that was sold in early trading and the market started climbing back toward the highs of the day after a pullback.  The rally efforts topped around 2:30 pm EST and the market then declined into the close but after the dust settled it was a flat day.  Again volumes were on the light side. Today’s economic calendar was light with only Pending Home Sales on the docket and came in worse than expected posting a -0.6% when 2.2% was expected.  Tomorrow we get more housing data…

Fed open to scale back causes pullback

Index & Sector performance 11/20/13 The Market: Initial optimism on better than expected economic data pre-market saw early selling as the S&P pulled off the highs of the day in the first hour of trading and then the market meandered waiting for the Fed minutes to be released.  After the 2pm EST announcement the market began selling off as the Fed showed they are prepared to scale back on the rate of asset purchases.  The S&P 500 was able to use late trading to close a few points off the lows of the day. In economic data, Core CPI came…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +60.44 (+0.40%) to 15,275.69; S&P 500 +8.44 (+0.51%) to 1,658.78; NASDAQ +6.57 (+0.22%) to 3,002.62 A very choppy yet still strong day to follow-up on Tuesday’s rip higher.  Today initially open lowered but by 11am EST was back to flat and then took off at what felt like an unabated rally which fell just shy of $1660 in the S&P 500 cash index.  The market then swooned almost back to even and finally finished up 8 points and only roughly 3 from the high.  There was a decent amount of economic data today and it was interestingly mixed but what will be watched for the…

Daily Wrap

DJIA -138.19 (-0.94%) to 14,618.59; S&P 500 -22.56 (-1.43%) to 1,552.01; NASDAQ -56.43 (-1.99%) to 2,781.98 Yesterday’s rally was short lived as the futures were slightly lower last night after the close and the losses picked up overnight and into the morning’s trading which then lasted the majority of the day not bottoming until just before 1pm EST.  Today was a light economic data day, although there was some fed speak, and sets up into tomorrow with the week’s Unemployment claims number.  I have estimates at 349K going into the number which is roughly where last week’s reading was (346K). The talk of…