March 19, 2024

Eurozone fears trigger late day sell-off

Index & Sector performance 2/4/15 The Market: Monday’s reversal in the S&P 500 (SPY) of the 200 day SMA continued Tuesday and was extending in today’s session, even with Oil trading lower, until later in the trading day when the index dropped sharply.  Traders pointed to news our of Europe that the ECB will not allow Banks to use Greek government debt as collateral for loans as the catalyst.  The Dow (DIA) was the only index on the WSC Scoreboard which managed to finish higher but that was greatly due to Disney (DIS) beating EPS and finishing up 7.63% on…

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…

ECB helps U.S. Dollar & market higher

Index & Sector performance 11/6/14 The Market: Comments from ECB President Mario Draghi suggesting that the central bank is committed to stimulating the region’s economy helped send the S&P 500 (SPY) and the U.S. Dollar higher on the session.  As would be expected the Euro/Dollar cross was under pressure finishing the U.S. trading session at new 2 year lows. A strong dollar is not a bad thing and increases global purchasing power of U.S. companies and individuals.  However, as we saw recently with the Trade Balance, a strong dollar can hurt exports.  Coupled with concerns over crude oil’s recent decline…

Quiet start to the month

Index & Sector performance 11/3/14 The Market: The market started the day slightly higher building on last week’s extremely strong session but the market ran out of steam in the short term and the S&P 500 started pulling back in afternoon trading finishing flat on the session.  All in all it was a low volume quiet session but the Bulls can point to the fact that they didn’t give ground after reaching new highs. We do not expect the remainder of the month to be as quiet as today and would plan for swings in both directions much like October…

Fed open to scale back causes pullback

Index & Sector performance 11/20/13 The Market: Initial optimism on better than expected economic data pre-market saw early selling as the S&P pulled off the highs of the day in the first hour of trading and then the market meandered waiting for the Fed minutes to be released.  After the 2pm EST announcement the market began selling off as the Fed showed they are prepared to scale back on the rate of asset purchases.  The S&P 500 was able to use late trading to close a few points off the lows of the day. In economic data, Core CPI came…

Icahn comments spark late day sell off

Index & Sector performance 11/18/13 The Market: It was a fairly quiet day in the markets until a comment from Carl Icahn appears to have started a late day sell off after noting that he could see the markets have a “big drop”.  This sent the S&P 500 down roughly 12 points in the final hour of trading In economic date the NAHB Housing Market Index fell slightly short of estimates posting a 54 when 56 was expected.  Today also some a mix of Fed speak and that continues tomorrow including Fed Chairman Bernanke at 7pm EST and President Obama…

The Market’s all a TWTR

Index & Sector performance 11/4/13 The Market: A gap higher in the S&P was quickly sold down to 11:30 am EST where the market found support and then rallied to the close making new highs for the day in the final few minutes. In economic data Factory orders came in lighter than expected and while there was some Fed speak, nothing too groundbreaking.  Tomorrow we see ISM and Economic Optimism.  Looming Thursday is the Unemployment Claims data which has a very low estimate and looks like a softball for the markets to beat.  A big miss with already low expectations…

Daily Wrap

DJIA -46.23 (-0.30%) to 15,612.13;S&P 500 -2.53 (-0.15%) to 1,707.14;NASDAQ +3.36 (+0.09%) to 3,692.95 The Dow and S&P 500 closed slightly lower while the Nasdaq saw a small gain mainly do to a good day in trading for Apple (AAPL).  This will likely be a much quieter week with not as many big names earnings reports or economic events but we did have PMI which came in better than analysts expected with a reading of 56.  Tomorrow on the calendar we have Trade Balance at 8:30 am EST and then FOMC member Evans is speaking at 1 pm EST (fireworks not expected). As…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +21.05 (+0.14%) to 14,839.80; S&P 500 +3.96 (+0.25%) to 1,597.57; NASDAQ +20.49 (+0.71%) to 2,887.44 Today saw some jockeying for position by the indices as they started the day moving lower and then recovered to close slightly up for the session.  In economic news the Case/Shiller index rose 1.2% from the previous month’s reading and topped estimates with a 9.3% vs 9.1% estimate.  Chicago PMI on the other hand fell short of estimates recording a 49 vs 52.5 estimate.  Consumer confidence came in mainly inline with a 68.1 vs 68.4 estimate. Before the open, Pfizer (PFE) reported earnings which missed on both revenues ($13.5B vs $14B) and EPS (54c…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +99.22 (+0.71%) to 13,979.30; S&P 500 +15.58 (+1.04%) to 1,511.29; NASDAQ +40.41 (+1.29%) to 3,171.58 I did not expect today to be as strong as it ended up being.  I thought yesterday’s move might be the start of a more prolonged pullback/consolidation that would then give us a new platform to rally from but today’s rally essentially gained back all of yesterday’s losses.  I still do feel this action is part of a topping process but clearly the market’s won’t go without a fight.  Also with this week being a low data week, earnings will likely be a driving…