March 19, 2024

HealthCare gains as market slides

Index & Sector performance 3/4/15 The Market: Ultimately, only a a small sell off in the markets after the S&P 500 rallied off the lows which coincided nicely with the upward sloping 20 day SMA.  Aggressive traders could certainly look to use today’s low to trade against. In Individual sectors, HealthCare (XLV) was the lone gainer finishing up 0.48% while the Industrials (XLI) led to the downside finishing 0.78% lower followed closely by Consumer Staples (XLP) and Financials (XLF) which finished down 0.70% and 0.61% respectively.  The biggest loser so far for 2015 is the Utilities (XLU) which is now…

Off the 200 Day and up

Index & Sector performance 2/2/15 The Market: The S&P 500 (SPY) started the session lower but found support just slightly above the 200 day SMA which has not been visited since October 2014.  After an initial pop and then pullback the index rallied the remainder of the session to finish over 30 points off the lows.  So far in the after hours the index is holding the gains and consolidating.  Today’s action should be very promising for long traders and you know your stops — below today’s lows. The leading sector on the WSC Scoreboard was Energy (XLE) finishing up…

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…

Market lower & Energy higher on week

Index & Sector performance 6/13/14 The Market: After logging a close outside of the Weekly (20, 2, -2) Bollinger Bands in the S&P 500 last week, the S&P 500 finished this week slightly lower.  As we noted last week when it happened, this is a noteworthy event to track in our opinion because it has led to multi-week/month counter trend moves and remains one reason we continue to cautious on the broad market at this time. While most of the sectors from the WSC Scoreboard finished the trading session higher, it was again Energy (XLE) leading the charge closing up nearly…

Nasdaq & Russell lead indices lower

Index & Sector performance 4/25/14 The Market: All the major indices were down in Friday’s action with the Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the way lower.  In individual sectors the Transportation index (IYT) and Consumer Discretionary (XLY) were  the biggest losers. The transports are an interesting case as they were one of the sectors making new highs recently but after an outside day yesterday the index followed through strongly to the downside today.  Leading the index lower was JetBlue (JBLU) closing down 5.38%.  After missing EPS yesterday, Reuters announced today that the Flight attendants will be looking…