March 19, 2024

Market continues to rebound

The Market: Stocks continue to chug along after last week’s impressive reversal on Wednesday.  Today was another turn around session which saw the S&P 500 gap down roughly 12 points before firming up in very early trading and then rallying the rest of the session to finish up over 9 points.  Above 2080 in the S&P 500 and it looks like the good times can continue. HealthCare (XLV) was the leader in individual sectors finishing up 1.01% followed closely by Consumer Discretionary (XLY) which closed up 0.96%.  Today’s underperformer was Consumer Staples (XLP) which finished flat on the session hurt…

Revisiting December’s lows

Index & Sector performance 1/6/15 The Market: Oil appears to still be affecting the broad market and causing caution in investors as crude, which lost the psychological $50 level yesterday, traded down over $2 in today’s session. Yesterday we remarked that a gap down in the morning could be a short term trading opportunity to the long side but unfortunately we opened flat to slightly up, negative the set-up, and then continue to crawl higher in the first hour of trading before the indices began to sharply lose ground.  Today’s sharp drop eventually found support at the mid-December trading lows…

S&P follows crude lower yet again

Index & Sector performance 12/15/14 The Market: Crude oil started to rebound in Sunday’s overnight session and helped the major indices start the day with a gap higher but the optimism was short lived.  Oil quickly started to lose ground after the open and reached fresh 52 week lows by noon taking the S&P with it.  Both indices found a midday bottom but only the S&P was able to close above those lows. We are interested to see if there is follow-through on the downside tomorrow in the S&P and if so we suggest traders remaining open to the possibility…

Merger Monday doesn’t help market

Index & Sector performance 11/17/14 The Market: Despite a very active M&A session, it was yet another very tight trading range in the S&P 500 while the NASDAQ (QQQ) lagged and the Russell 2000 (IWM) led to the downside. In deals we saw Allergan (AGN) agree to be acquired by Actavis (ACT) for a combination of cash and ACT stock which totaled $219 per share.  Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) who had also been trying to buy AGN stepped aside not feeling comfortable they could justify the valuation to shareholders.  Two more big names in M&A news as Halliburton (HAL) announced it…