Ceasefire helps stocks higher
Index & Sector performance 8/18/14 The Market: Strong strong session with the Dow (DIA) and Russell 2000 (IWM) closing up over 1% while the S&P 500 (SPY) and NASDAQ (QQQ) were not too far behind. It appears the markets were able to build on Friday’s late day move off the lows being helped by optimism of a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire. The IWM, which has spent the majority of the year in the red, is not only down 0.23% on the year. Multiple sectors posted strong performances including the Transportation (IYT), Retail (XRT), Industrials (XLI), and Financials (XLF) all up over 1%…
Intraday swing leave only small gains
Index & Sector performance 4/28/14 The Market: After moving slightly higher in the overnight and early trading, the S&P 500 quickly dropped in the midday session before finding a bottom around 1:30 pm ET. While the S&P fell a few points short of making it back to the earlier intraday highs, it did manage to post a small gain on the day. The Dow led the major indices helped by a 4.2% gain from Pfizer (PFE) while the Russell 2000 closed slightly down on the day. Many big name stocks in the news including the aforementioned Pfizer (PFE) who…
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…
Next target the 50 day SMA?
Index & Sector performance 3/13/14 The Market: A strong down day in the market but coming into the day people may have thought that would be a result of a poor Unemployment Claims number but we actually saw a better than expected 315K (334K est). After the report the index meandered higher into the open and then after peaking out above trend line resistance, turned and started what proved to be a day long decline. At 11:30 am we posted on StockTwits that the decline in the ES looked like it had lower to go especially due to the slope…
A low volume flat session
Index & Sector performance 11/25/13 The Market: Monday’s trading started with some optimism but that was sold in early trading and the market started climbing back toward the highs of the day after a pullback. The rally efforts topped around 2:30 pm EST and the market then declined into the close but after the dust settled it was a flat day. Again volumes were on the light side. Today’s economic calendar was light with only Pending Home Sales on the docket and came in worse than expected posting a -0.6% when 2.2% was expected. Tomorrow we get more housing data…
Daily Wrap
DJIA -12.67 (-0.08%) to 15,294.50; S&P 500 -4.84 (-0.29%) to 1,650.51; NASDAQ -7.68 (-0.26%) to 2,991.45 A much more exciting day today than the markets might otherwise look if you simply check the closing prices. The market traded lower overnight as the Nikkei lost roughly 7%. Our markets used the first 30 minutes or so of trading to find the bottom and then rallied with all 3 major indices (and even the Russell 2000) spending time up on the day. The march to even ultimately acted as resistance and the S&P pulled back during the last hour to finish with small losses. On…
Daily Wrap
DJIA +83.86 (+0.58%) to 14,539.14; S&P 500 +8.71 (+0.56%) to 1,563.23; NASDAQ +13.81 (+0.43%) to 3,258.93 Nothing much happened today, another day another Dow high, you know, the usual. Today at the close actually would not have been a bad spot to try and take a small short as a spec trade into tomorrow. Nothing big, nothing saying a top is in but just 10 straight days up in the Dow is somewhat extended. Economic data today included U.S. jobless claims which came in lower than expected at 332K. Stock of the day today was E-Trade Financial (ETFC) which lost over 8% after…
Daily Wrap
DJIA -28.57 (-0.23%) S&P 500 -2.17 (-0.16%) NASDAQ -9.87 (-0.35%) Sector’s lagging in the S&P today were: Utilities -0.73%, Basic Materials -0.96%, Telecommunications -1.07% while the leaders were: Consumer Goods +0.20%, Financials +0.20% and Oil & Gas +0.14%. Another morning where the S&P started higher but faced early selling. If you were to just check in at the end of the day you would think today was a lack luster day in the market but if you were around it felt like a much more volatile than the ending prices reflect. We posted at StockTwits the 5 minute downtrend line on the…