Big follow through session
Index & Sector performance 12/18/14 The Market: Following on the rally after the FOMC statement release yesterday, today gaped higher and never looked back with the S&P 500 (SPY) finishing up 2.50%. Yesterday’s leader, the Russell 200 (IWM), was today’s laggard but still finished up 1.45%. Unlike previous sessions where the markets seem to take their cue from Oil, today the markets rallied even while oil continued its slide. Again as would be expected on a day like today, all of the individual sectors were higher with Technology (XLK), HealthCare (XLV), Industrials (XLI), Financials (XLF), and Materials (XLB) all finishing…
Tight trading ends with pop higher
Index & Sector performance 11/18/14 The Market: After multiple sessions trading in a tight range the broad indices broke-out to new highs. It is worth noting that volume was again light but that has been the case throughout much of this recent rally after the mid October bottom. In the after hours session the futures started to give back some of today’s gains so we will be looking to see if today was a false breakout which gives way to a pullback or if the indices can hold. In individual sectors, HealthCare (XLV) led finishing 1.61% higher helped by strong…
S&P showing signs of indecision
Index & Sector performance 11/13/14 The Market: The NASDAQ (QQQ) led today’s trading while the Russell 2000 (IWM) was the clear laggard. The S&P 500 (SPY) is refusing to break with the exception of very small sharp pullbacks which are short lived. Volume over the past two days remains light although is an uptick from earlier in the week. We view the current action as indecision as the SPY wrestles with price discovery and ultimately expect lower levels to be seen. Energy (XLE) led the WSC Scoreboard sectors lower giving back some of the recent hard fought gains but did…
Early momentum fades
Index & Sector performance 8/11/14 The Market: Stocks started off the day building on Friday’s gains but near midday the S&P 500 topped out and then spent the rest of the day moving lower. All 4 indices on the WSC Scoreboard finished the day higher but the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) were the clear winners with the IWM gaining nearly 1%. The leading sector on the day was the Consumer Staples (XLP) but the stock in the index that stood out the most was to the downside and that is Dean Foods (DF). DF finished the day down…
Low volume rally led by Russell 2K
Index & Sector performance 5/20/14 The Market: An overall light volume day was led to the upside by the Russell 2000 followed by the NASDAQ 100. In individual sectors, Utilities (XLU) led to the downside followed by the Consumer Staples (XLP) while the transportation index was the largest gainer with components Matson (MATX) and JetBlue (JBLU) up the most gaining 3.05% and 2.42% respectively. MATX and JBLU both appear to be viable long trade candidates going forward. This is an extremely quiet Economic data week with a lot of Fed speak. Earnings will play a role for individual stocks so…
The Calm before Jobs data storm?
Index & Sector performance 1/9/14 The Market: A mixed consolidation day in S&P 500 saw the futures up in the pre-market only to sell off at the open. That sell off persisted until 11am EST losing roughly 15 S&P points from the pre-market highs and then the S&P bottomed and staged a rally which didn’t make it back to the pre-market highs but did take back more than half of what was lost. In Economic data today, Unemployment claims came in better than expected posting a 330K number when 337K was expected but the previous week was revised about 6K…
Market starts on Tryptophan
Index & Sector performance 12/2/13 The Market: Overall not a very active day in this first full trading session after the Thanksgiving holiday and to start December. Today’s action started with an early dip that was quickly bought and started to rally higher until 12:30 pm EST. That is where the rally lost steam and started a descent back down toward the earlier lows. The market reached and went through those lows finally closing at $1800 in the S&P 500. It is unclear if this slow start to the month is about to start a slide or if it is…
Ben to the rescue!
Index & Sector performance 9/18/13 The Market: The clock struck 2pm EST and it is time for Big Ben and the Fed to put all the recent speculation, at least for now, to rest. Neither changes to the current $85B bond purchased program nor the fed funds target rate. That news sparked a near 30 point rally which ultimately closed up 23 points from the announcement. Besides the Federal Reserve rate decision, in economic data we had building permits and housing starts which both came in lower than the previous month and also below expectations but with all due respect…