Central bank news abroad drives headlines
Index & Sector performance 1/21/15 The Market: It was a relatively choppy session which saw the Dow (DIA), S&P 500 (SPY), and NASDAQ (QQQ) manage to finish higher while the Russell 2000 (IWM) closed lower. There were reports out of Europe that the ECB Executive Board proposed the purchase of EUR 50B/mo of bonds in a program that should last at least a year. There was more news from outside the U.S. with a surprise rate cut in Canada to counteract the sharply declining oil prices. Energy (XLE) led the charge today as all sectors on the WSC Scoreboard finished…
Fed gains quickly given back
Index & Sector performance 10/9/14 The Market: All the gains saw from yesterday’s Fed driven rally were taken back in today’s trading with the Dow (DIA) and S&P 500 (SPY) closing down nearly 2% while the Russell 2000 (IWM) lost 2.7%. The NASDAQ (QQQ) was helped by Apple (APPL) which managed to post a small gain of 0.22% on the session but the QQQ’s still finsihed 1.62% lower. Some big numbers put up across the sectors led by Energy (XLE) which finished down 3.67% and is now over 4% lower on the year. The XLE underperforming is not new but…
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…
Retail leads low volume rally
Index & Sector performance 6/4/14 The Market: Another very light volume trading day led by the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 while the S&P 500 climbed to a new closing high. There were mixed results across the sectors but a stand out was the Retail (XRT) sector which closed up 0.76%. Walgreen (WAG) finished up 4.19% to a new closing high on better than expected Q3 sales along with solid same-store-sales up 5.1%. A more speculative name in retail also moving higher today was RadioShack (RSH) which closed up 8.63%. For those looking for a speculative trade, RSH is a prime…
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…