Yellen to the rescue
Index & Sector performance 12/17/14 The Market: Fueled by continued caution from the Fed in raising rates and a rebound in Oil prices, the broad indices roared higher with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge finishing up over 3%. We noted in Monday’s comments that a gap lower Tuesday could be a great trading opportunity. For anyone that did not just day trade Tuesday’s gap down and are still holding, we would be using relatively tight stops to manage the position as there is still some concern lower levels could be seen before this decline is over. …
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…
Fed gains quickly given back
Index & Sector performance 10/9/14 The Market: All the gains saw from yesterday’s Fed driven rally were taken back in today’s trading with the Dow (DIA) and S&P 500 (SPY) closing down nearly 2% while the Russell 2000 (IWM) lost 2.7%. The NASDAQ (QQQ) was helped by Apple (APPL) which managed to post a small gain of 0.22% on the session but the QQQ’s still finsihed 1.62% lower. Some big numbers put up across the sectors led by Energy (XLE) which finished down 3.67% and is now over 4% lower on the year. The XLE underperforming is not new but…
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…
Retail leads low volume rally
Index & Sector performance 6/4/14 The Market: Another very light volume trading day led by the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 while the S&P 500 climbed to a new closing high. There were mixed results across the sectors but a stand out was the Retail (XRT) sector which closed up 0.76%. Walgreen (WAG) finished up 4.19% to a new closing high on better than expected Q3 sales along with solid same-store-sales up 5.1%. A more speculative name in retail also moving higher today was RadioShack (RSH) which closed up 8.63%. For those looking for a speculative trade, RSH is a prime…
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…
6 day win streak ends..new starts?
Index & Sector performance 4/23/14 The Market: Today’s session snapped a 6 day winning streak for the S&P 500 but the losses were small and maintained a very orderly structure throughout the day. In after hours trading, the futures traded sharply higher helped by Apple’s (AAPL) earnings which beat EPS and revenue along with announcing a 7 for 1 stock split, increase in the buyback, and an 8% increase in the dividend. With tonight’s overnight action, the S&P 500 is now closing in on the all time highs . Focus will continue to be on earnings especially with a very…
Choppy session ahead of Jobs
Index & Sector performance 3/6/14 The Market: Overall today was a choppy session which started with an overnight breakout which couldn’t gain steam and retraced back to the breakout levels in early morning trading. The market then found a bottom and rallied to the 1880ES pivot which acted as resistance twice finally sending the index back down toward the original breakout region in late day trading. We expect the choppy trading to continue until the Non-Farm payroll number tomorrow at 8:30am EST. We have consensus estimates currently at 151K with an Unemployment number of 6.6%. Below is a recap of…
Bulls fight back after a gap down
Index & Sector performance 11/13/13 The Market: Losses after a gap down on the open were completely recouped in the first hour of trading. After a brief consolidation, the S&P 500 moved strongly higher into the close posting a 14 point up day but from trough to peak the moved covered 22 points. In economic data the Federal Budget Balance came in better than expected with a -91.6B vs expectations of -104.3B. Tomorrow there is more economic data including the usual Unemployment Claims which we have an estimate of 331K. Another noteworthy even is that Janet Yellen testifies tomorrow at…
S&P 500 narrowly escapes with a gain
Index & Sector performance 10/9/13 The Market: Rumors out of Washington have helped drive the indices of late as investors are looking for more information regarding the government shutdown as well as who may be replacing Ben Bernanke. News today broke that Janet Yellen will be the next Federal Reserve chairperson taking the place of Ben Bernanke at the end of January 2014. Initial opinions seemed to be that Yellen will continue on with a more dovish stance for the Fed. Today looked as though the market could not gain traction but at 11:30 am EST the market bottomed and…