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…
Yellen to the rescue
Index & Sector performance 12/17/14 The Market: Fueled by continued caution from the Fed in raising rates and a rebound in Oil prices, the broad indices roared higher with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge finishing up over 3%. We noted in Monday’s comments that a gap lower Tuesday could be a great trading opportunity. For anyone that did not just day trade Tuesday’s gap down and are still holding, we would be using relatively tight stops to manage the position as there is still some concern lower levels could be seen before this decline is over. …
S&P follows crude lower yet again
Index & Sector performance 12/15/14 The Market: Crude oil started to rebound in Sunday’s overnight session and helped the major indices start the day with a gap higher but the optimism was short lived. Oil quickly started to lose ground after the open and reached fresh 52 week lows by noon taking the S&P with it. Both indices found a midday bottom but only the S&P was able to close above those lows. We are interested to see if there is follow-through on the downside tomorrow in the S&P and if so we suggest traders remaining open to the possibility…
Merger Monday doesn’t help market
Index & Sector performance 11/17/14 The Market: Despite a very active M&A session, it was yet another very tight trading range in the S&P 500 while the NASDAQ (QQQ) lagged and the Russell 2000 (IWM) led to the downside. In deals we saw Allergan (AGN) agree to be acquired by Actavis (ACT) for a combination of cash and ACT stock which totaled $219 per share. Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) who had also been trying to buy AGN stepped aside not feeling comfortable they could justify the valuation to shareholders. Two more big names in M&A news as Halliburton (HAL) announced it…
Heartfelt thank you to our Vets!!!
Index & Sector performance 11/11/14 The Market: A Heartfelt thank you goes out to all of the past, present, and future service men and women who work each day to keep us safe. Without you, what we have and unfortunately often take for granted each and every day would not exist. Almost zeros across the board as it was a relatively uneventful trading session. Maybe the clearest example of how uneventful is that the entire trading day’s range on the S&P 500 was 6 points and volume was again light. As noted last night, we still view the short term…
Russell outperforms in ugly session
Index & Sector performance 10/13/14 The Market: Another 1+% down day across the major indices on the WSC Scoreboard except for the Russell 2000 (IWM) which finished the session down only 0.42%. YTD the IWM is still the clear loser down 9.55% but today’s outperformance is interesting and something to watch. IWM’s underperformance starting earlier in the year was a warning so if it begins to outperform on a consistent basis going forward it should be noted. It does not feel like very long ago when the only down sector on the WSC Scoreboard Was Retail (XRT) but now we…
Tech leads quiet up session
Index & Sector performance 9/10/14 The Market: Administrative note: we will be traveling the remainder of the week so there will be no updates after tonight. A nice bounce back in the markets after yesterday’s late day sell off. The leader in the broad indices was the NASDAQ (QQQ) keying, again, off Apple (AAPL) which finished the session up 3.07%. After being a relative outperformer yesterday in a bad tape, HeathCare (XLV) was the leader on the WSC Scoreboard today finishing the session up 0.70%. Utilities (XLU), yesterday’s biggest loser, saw more downside follow-through finishing the session 0.44% lower. Also…
Apple finally lands China
Index & Sector performance 12/23/13 The Market: The market was able to produce a gap higher to start this shortened trading week which will include a half day of trading Christmas eve and the market will be closed Wednesday December 25th in observance of Christmas. After the gap itself the S&P remained in a roughly 4-5 point trading range the entire day on light volume. There was a fair amount of economic data released today but nothing that really tipped the balances. Core PCE and Consumer spending came in right at expectations while Personal Income slightly missed (0.2% vs. 0.4%…
Triple witching tomorrrow
Index & Sector performance 12/19/13 The Market: Today trading range was rather tight after yesterday’s explosion with the entire day’s range in the S&P 500 only about 9 points. Tomorrow will be options expiration and a Triple Witching which can come with some volatility. In economic data today we sub a much worse than expected Unemployment claims number come in at 379K when 366K was expected. Other key data also underperformed expectations with Existing Home Sales missing expectations (4.9M vs. 5.04M) and Philly Fed Manufacturing Index (7 vs. 10.3). Tomorrow we get GDP and Monday 12/23 we have Core PCE,…
The Taper begins…
Index & Sector performance 12/18/13 The Market: A strong day in the market with the gains all coming after the 2 pm EST FOMC report. The S&P 500 was in a holding pattern until just before the report when it started to drop lower. After the report there was a quick spike lower (likely on the headline of bond buying decreasing) and the S&P 500 tagged the 50 day SMA where the index then bottomed and ripped higher. From Peak to Trough the S&P 500 gained rouhgly43 points! In economic news today we saw Housing Starts handily beat expectations (1.09M…