XLU stands out in today’s action
Index & Sector performance 2/18/15 The Market: A choppy session overall which ended up finishing flat. Some negative divergence is building on the S&P 500 60 minute chart but, even when it leads to a pullback, the divergence can exist for many day. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the index continue to meander and drift higher for the remainder of the week into Options expiration. In individual sectors it was the Utilities (XLU) leading the way and by a wide margin finishing up 2.37%. We would be watching the XLU closely here to see if it can build on…
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…
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…
Lots of data yields flat finish
Index & Sector performance 7/30/14 The Market: Lots of Economic Data/announcements in today’s session but when the dust settled it was surprisingly a flat session with the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) leading while the Dow (DIA) finished slightly lower and the S&P 500 (SPY) finished slightly higher. The leading sector on the WSC Scoreboard was Retail (XRT) finishing the day up 1% however Retail remains the only individual sector on the WSC Scoreboard that is down for the year. The laggard was the Utilities (XLU) and decisively so finishing the day down 1.69%. We remain interested in some…
Fed helps S&P to new highs
Index & Sector performance 6/18/14 The Market: After what amounted to a roughly 1.5% correction from the 6/9/14 highs to the 6/12/14 lows, the S&P 500 has since rallied and as of today’s close made a new intraday and closing all time high. The majority of the gains were realized after the FOMC statement and rate decision where the Fed left the rate unchanged and lowered monthly bond purchases by $10B. We have taken a cautious stance on the broad market since 6/6/14 due to multiple overbought conditions across multiple time frames. While the pullback from 6/9 – 6/12/14 helped…
S&P takes back overnight losses plus
Index & Sector performance 5/5/14 The Market: The S&P futures moved lower in the Sunday overnight session attributed to weak economic data out of China as well continued unrest in Ukraine. The futures continued lower throughout early trading Monday but found a bottom right at the open on an initial spike lower to 1860.50ES which was quickly bought and the index started a march higher reaching 1880ES by 2:30 pm ET. The index spent the last hour consolidating the near 20 point intraday rally. If 1872ES holds in overnight trading it appears the index could look to make a move…
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…
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…
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…
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. …