China, Icahn, & IBB lead market lower
The Market: A gap-and-go day to the downside as the S&P 500 finished nearly 50 points lower on the session as media pointed to renewed concerns over China’s economy and cautious comments from Carl Icahn on high yield bonds and the stock market. The Dow (DIA) was the relative outperformer today finishing down only -1.9% while the NASDAQ (QQQ) finished down the most at -2.85% on the session but YTD that is reversed with the DIA down slightly over –10% while the QQQ is only down slightly over -3%. Short-term the market appears to be very oversold here and we…
Greece rules headlines in slow session
Index & Sector performance 2/9/15 The Market: Losses across the WSC Scoreboard with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the way followed by the Dow (DIA), which was affected by McDonald’s (MCD) finishing down 1.35% after reporting a drop in January sales of 1.8%. Otherwise traders seem focused on the continued fighting between Greece and the Eurozone. Energy was the only sector on the WSC Scoreboard to finish higher but it wasn’t by much and was helped by Oil continuing its recovery. Today’s biggest laggard was HeathCare (XLV) which finished down 1.18% followed by Transportation (IYT) down 0.99% and Utilities (XLU)…
Oil trades below $50 & leads market lower
Index & Sector performance 1/5/15 The Market: The market was again led by Oil’s decline as we closed below $50 per barrel for the first time since 2009. In the Analyst Comments below you will see a downgrade for Caterpillar (CAT) by JP Morgan. In the note the analyst commented that up to 30% of CAT’s revenue could be under pressure due to lower oil prices. Similarly, Evercore downgraded Terex (TEX) to Hold with an $26 target and United Rentals (URI) to Sell with a $87 target citing concerns that oil’s sharp decline will hurt energy investments and thus construction…
New Ebola scare helps market off highs
Index & Sector performance 10/23/14 The Market: The market was cruising along today until roughly 2pm ET when the market turned and then started quickly losing ground. Traders pointed to news that a doctor who had treated Ebola patients was rushed to the hospital in New York City. The sell off was not enough to give back all the days gains but we closed well off the intraday highs. Many sectors from the WSC Scoreboard participated in the rally with the biggest gainer the Industrials (XLI) finishing up over 2% helped greatly by Union Pacific Corporation (UNP) and 3M (MMM)…
Low volume give back after 3 solid days
Index & Sector performance 10/22/14 The Market: Today marked a give back after 3 solid days of gains. The leader to the downside was the index that we have been watching closely for the past few weeks, the Russell 2000 (IWM). The IWM’s underperformance throughout the year was a warning just as its outperformance near the recent bottom. The IWM has put in work to find a bottom and start to move off the lows of last week but it is not our of the woods yet in our opinion. First step is remaining above $107 and then the lows…
News & EPS will dominate week
Index & Sector performance 10/20/14 The Market: This is a very light Economic data week but don’t worry. Earnings will more than make up for it with a Packed schedule all the way through to Friday. All the indices on the WSC Scoreboard were nicely higher but the Dow (DIA) was the clear laggard after IBM (IBM) lost over 7% due to a disappointing Q3 report which missed on revenues and EPS. The company also announced that they would no longer be able to meet its goal of $20/share in operating EPS by 2015. Solid results across all the sectors…
EPS should lead trading
Index & Sector performance 7/21/14 The Market: Slow start to the week saw the S&P futures down over 10 points in early trading only to rally back and finish the day relatively flat on the session. The best performer of the 4 broad indices was the NASDAQ (QQQ) but all-in-all it was a low volume relatively uneventful start to the week. With not much scheduled in terms of Economic data this week (see schedule below), eyes will be firmly fixed on the slew of earnings coming out. Below is the list of confirmed pre-market reports for 7/22/14 and the remainder…
Merger denied, collaboration approved
Index & Sector performance 7/16/14 The Market: A small up session in the market was helped by solid earnings reports in the morning and a potential huge media merger between Time Warner (TWX) and Twenty First Century Fox (FOXA). FOXA offered $85/share but were turned down by TWZ. This sent shares of TWX screaming higher finishing the day up 17.07% as traders reevaluated TWX’s worth and also speculated on increased offers. In other corporate news, Apple (AAPL) announced they will be teaming up with IBM (IBM) to provide business mobile solutions. BlackBerry (BBRY) was negatively affected by the news finishing…