March 19, 2024

Russell clear winner in mixed start to week

Index & Sector performance 6/9/14 The Market: All 4 major indices on the WSC Scoreboard started the week moving higher picking up where they left off last week including the small cap Russell 2000 which continued its recent outperformance.  The quick start soon came to an end when each index made a top around noon ET which was never again revisited in today’s trading.  While the Russell 2000 managed to finish respectfully higher for the day, the rest of the indices were flat to slightly down. We noted in Friday’s  report last week that the S&P 500 closed outside of…

FOMC minutes ease market concerns

Index & Sector performance 4/9/14 The Market: After bottoming and bouncing in yesterday’s session, the S&P 500 futures spend the majority of the overnight session consolidating in a tight range.  This lead to an early breakout, retest, and continuation higher but it was after the FOMC minutes were released at 2pm ET when the strongest gains were realized.  Concern the Fed would be aggressive with rate hikes subsided and traders rewarded the market with 1+% gains across the board with the Nasdaq leading the charge up 1.7%.  Next on the economic data schedule is Unemployment Claims which are released at…

Apple, Autos, Earnings & DC

The Market: The markets started off somewhat muted and then took off heading strongly higher and even closing not much off the highs.  Th leader of the day was the Tech sector and inside tech it was Apple (AAPL) that had a strong showing closing up over 2% on the day on analyst upgrades and optimism on multicolored iPhones and lower price points..  Lagging was the Utilities which via the ETF XLU only managed to eek out a small gain. In economic news, the Trade balance came in with a greater deficit than expected while auto sales were stronger than…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +75.65 (+0.50%) to 15,300.34;S&P 500 +11.86 (+0.72%) to 1,652.32;NASDAQ +19.43 (+0.56%) to 3,504.26 Some don’t think it is the right way to start the season but Alcoa ( AA ) still is known for kicking off earnings and this much maligned stock and company.  AA reported EPS that beat analysts expectations (7c vs 6c) on just slightly lower than expected revenue ($5.8B vs $5.83B).  After reporting last night, AA closed almost exactly flat today but considering AA recently bounced I would say it held the recent move.  Is the bottom in AA in?  It could be.  Everyone that has thought that…

Week in Review

DJIA +8.37 (+0.06%) to 13,981.76; S&P 500 -1.59 (-0.10%) to 1,519.79; NASDAQ -6.63 (-0.21%) to 3,192.03 A pretty lack luster Friday to close off a lack luster week.  There wasn’t a shortage of events and things the market could use to drive direction one way or the other but it simply chose not to.  The market seems firmly pitted between valuations that may seem somewhat extended and technicals that would like a pullback but the continued accommodating environment from the Fed and also the Government as they continue to run deficits and even if cutting it is slow to not shock the economy.  How the market…

Week in Review

DJIA +43.85 (+0.33%) to 13,435.21; S&P 500 +7.10 (+0.49%) to 1,466.47; NASDAQ +1.09 (+0.04%) to 3,101.66 Hopefully slow and steady will win the race when it comes to the Jobs market.  Adding another 155K non-farm jobs  was just a tick above analysts expectations and the revised Unemployment rate for November to 7.8% held into December. The market started the morning somewhat choppy while seemingly digest the morning’s economic data and then started a near uninterrupted climb closing near highs of the day. Supervalu (SVU) gapped higher and closed up over 13.5% on a Wall Street Journal report that private equity firm Cerberus Capital is close…

Daily Wrap

DJIA -21.19 (-0.16%) to 13,391.36; S&P 500 -3.05 (-0.21%) to 1,459.37; NASDAQ -11.69 (-0.38%) to 3,100.57 I noted last night that after the previous two days that the market should look to consolidate.  Not that it is bearish or due for a massive decline but should consolidate and that is what today was.  We started lower, rallied to up by midday and then closed weak, all the wall essentially hovering right around flat.  The Fed minutes were released providing some excitement but ultimately I didn’t see anything “market moving” but more just some interesting insight for the econ-nerdy.  This type…