Earnings should take center stage
The Market: Not much movement in today’s action as we saw a drop in volume across all the major Indices. The overnight session saw futures move lower which seemed primarily due to some exhaustion in the markets but not helping was China’s GDP numbers which met expectations but slowed compared to the prior quarter. With this being a light Economic Data week, we expect focus to be on individual stocks as they report earnings. Below is a list of names that reported tonight after the close and that will report tomorrow with even more listed in the Events Calendar. In…
Weak ADP data helps market gap
The Market: The market gapped and continued higher for the first hour of trading which the news attributed to a weak ADP number which could keep the Fed from raising interest rates anytime soon. After the first hour of trading the major indices began to lose ground and, while they all finished up on the day, they were all also well off their highs. Leading on the WSC Scoreboard was Retail (XRT) which was the only sector to finish up by over 1% followed closely by Technology (XLK) which closed up 0.97%. The only two losing sectors on the day…
Oil gets crushes while market dips
The Market: A small down day which could have looked worse if not for a late day rally off the lows. Interesting to see the leaders to the downside were the Dow (DIA) and Russell 2000 (IWM). We were looking for the market to close just off the lows and then gap down tomorrow for a short-term long opportunity but today’s end of day rally has changed that set-up. Overall we remain cautious on the broad market and believe the choppy trading of late will continue. Energy (XLE) led to the downside, again, as crude oil continues to slide reaching…
Farewell QE3
Index & Sector performance 10/29/14 The Market: It was a relatively quiet session the majority of the day as traders were awaiting the 2pm FOMC rate decisions and statement. As was expected, the Fed ended QE3 but continued to note that rates would remain low for a “considerable period”. The initial reaction after the release was a move lower but the market had already been trending that way since the open and, after the initial drop, buyers stepped in and ultimately the indices closed only slightly lower. It was a mixed session across the WSC Scoreboard sectors with Materials (XLB)…
EoD gains mask intraday swing
Index & Sector performance 9/17/14 The Market: Early in the session the markets were quiet as traders awaited the FOMC statement and speculated if the wording of the statement would be changed. The answer was that not much changed and specifically the Fed continues to state that they will keep key interest rates near zero for a “considerable time”. The initial reaction to the release was a sharp decline but buyers quickly stepped in and the S&P 500 recovered and then rallied to fresh highs on the day before finishing the session back where it started. The leading sector on…
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…
GDP disappoints but market ignores
Index & Sector performance 4/30/14 The Market: As you can see in the table below, the U.S. Q1 GDP number came in well below expectations. While Q1 was not expected to be a high growth quarter, clearly analysts did not expect a near negative number. Certainly the colder than expected weather could have and likely did play a role but on our opinion you cannot completely blame a miss like this on the weather. So why might traders and investors be willing to look past this data besides the weather? Possibly because a number like this allows the Fed to…
Off the 150 day and up
Index & Sector performance 2/5/14 The Market: In the News: The following noteworthy companies are scheduled to report earnings before tomorrow’s open: PM, AET, EXC, CMI, NBL, K, PPL, PRGO, ADS, SIAL, WEC, TW, AAP, VMC, DO, TDC, KKR, SNA, CSL, NUS, ODFL, AOL, PTEN, USG, NYT, FSC, HCLP, NILE Analyst Comments: The Game Plan:
All quiet before jobs data
Index & Sector performance 10/21/13 The Market: Not too much to report as it was a quiet down day in the S&P 500 and Dow with the Nasdaq making small gains much on the back of a strong performance from Apple (AAPL) closing up nearly 2.5% on the day. In economic news we had Existing Home Sales with came in light posting a 5.29M when 5.31M was expected. Tomorrow will be a much bigger day as we get the jobs report that was delayed due to the government shutdown. Current forecast is for 182K and Unemployment rate of 7.3% Story…
Market follows up gap with more gains
Index & Sector performance 9/17/13 The Market: The majority of today’s action was in the first half hour of trading when the S&P gaped slightly higher and then ran up seeing the majority of the days gains. The remainder of the day the market was able to hold those gains and drift higher on what looked to be an overall light volume day. In economic news, Core CPI came in as expected while headline CPI was actually less than expected with a 0.1% increase when 0.2% was expected. Remember headline reflects food and energy while core strips it out. Tomorrow…