March 19, 2024

Sharp snap back rally — SPY up YTD

Index & Sector performance 3/12/15 The Market: Strong performance today with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge for the 2nd straight day followed by the Dow (DIA) and S&P 500 (SPY).  Friday will be an interesting session as traders will have to decide how they want to end the week.  In the very short term the SPY looks stretched so we would consider using a gap up tomorrow morning as a (very) short-term selling opportunity. In individual sectors it was the Financials (XLF) which led the way finishing up 2.13% followed closely by Consumer Discretionary (XLY) which ended up…

QQQ & IWM reach new highs

Index & Sector performance 2/26/15 The Market: More churn today in the markets but again the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) showed more strength than the S&P 500 (SPY) with the QQQ and IWM reaching new 52-week closing highs on the session. Crude oil lost over 5% today which helped send the Energy (XLE) sector 1.88% lower.  We noted in our 2/18/15 nightly recap when the XLE was trading above $81 that we would look for a pullback toward $78 as a buying opportunity.  Closing today at $79.35, we would ideally like to see lower levels before dipping into…

Low volume drift higher

Index & Sector performance 11/10/14 The Market: Without any key news or economic data the market was happy to drift with the trend which is higher.  This drift higher in the markets has created some negative divergence on the intraday charts so we would not be surprised to see downside action early in the week.  However, at this time we would expect the losses to be contained and ultimately for that initial dip to be a buying opportunity for short term traders. Stand out sector to the upside was Transportation (IYT) which finished the day 1.34% higher followed by HealthCare…

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…

Markets stop slide, fight back

Index & Sector performance 8/4/14 The Market: After two strong down days, all 4 indices on the WSC Scoreboard managed to find bottoms and rally with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge finishing the day 0.89% higher.  One note of caution, volume was on the light side when compared to the previous two sessions.  Our suggestion would be to watch the first major pullback after today’s move.  If it is orderly then the market likely has unfinished business to the upside, otherwise we will likely see another push lower. In individual sectors it was green across the board except…

Utilities big loser ahead of Jobs data

Index & Sector performance 7/2/14 The Market: The WSC Scoreboard was relatively flat to mixed with the Dow (DIA), S&P 500 (SPY), and NASDAQ (QQQ) closing slightly higher while the Russell 2000 (IWM) finished 0.35% lower. In individual sectors, the Utilities (XLU) stood out as the biggest loser finishing 1.99% lower on the day and appears vulnerable to even more downside action after being the leader so far in 2014.  Every stock in the XLU finished down on the day with some finishing down over 3% including Exelon (EXC), FirstEnergy (FE), and Entergy (ETR) down 3.11%, 3.50%, and 3.25% respectively. …

Low volume rally led by Russell 2K

Index & Sector performance 5/20/14 The Market: An overall light volume day was led to the upside by the Russell 2000 followed by the NASDAQ 100.  In individual sectors, Utilities (XLU) led to the downside followed by the Consumer Staples (XLP) while the transportation index was the largest gainer with components Matson (MATX) and JetBlue (JBLU) up the most gaining 3.05% and 2.42% respectively.  MATX and JBLU both appear to be viable long trade candidates going forward. This is an extremely quiet Economic data week with a lot of Fed speak.  Earnings will play a role for individual stocks so…

The Calm before Jobs data storm?

Index & Sector performance 1/9/14 The Market: A mixed consolidation day in S&P 500 saw the futures up in the pre-market only to sell off at the open.  That sell off persisted until 11am EST losing roughly 15 S&P points from the pre-market highs and then the S&P bottomed and staged a rally which didn’t make it back to the pre-market highs but did take back more than half of what was lost. In Economic data today, Unemployment claims came in better than expected posting a 330K number when 337K was expected but the previous week was revised about 6K…

Early Gains quickly fade

Index & Sector performance 1/06/14 The Market: Pre-market optimism was met with early selling which took the S&P 500 from $137 on the open own to $1824 by midday.  The market bounced along crafting a bottom until roughly 2pm EST when the S&P managed to rally off the lows.  While it never made it back to the morning high, the S&P managed to rally back toward even on the day but then sold off in the last hour closing near the lows of the day. In economic news we saw Factory Orders and Services PMI come in as expected while…

China fears helped send market lower

Index & Sector performance 10/23/13 The Market: Today was a gap own and meander day where the majority f the losses were seen in very early trading and the rest of the day was mostly choppy. News attributed the drop to tightening fears out of China which sent international markets lower but as we have discussed here the market seemed ripe for a pullback.  More lower.. In economic data there was not too much today with import prices coming in roughly as expected while the Home Price Index was well below expectations (0.3% vs 0.8%) .  Yesterday we had the…