Close lower ahead of bank stress test
Index & Sector performance 3/26/14 The Market: Early morning upside action quickly reversed and started a strong sell off which broke the short term uptrend line in the emini, back-tested and then continued lower into late day trading. Yet again the 1856ES region was a key short term level and now is strong resistance but the emini will have to first get through 1847ES to start and build a bull case, otherwise don’t be surprised to see the S&P test the 50 day moving average which is roughly 15 points lower. Reporting EPS 3/27/14 Pre-Market: Analyst Comments: Chart of…
Early dip met with strong buying
Index & Sector performance 2/13/14 The Market: The markets began to dip overnight and into early morning trading. Weaker than expected economic data didn’t help but just as the market officially opened the bottom was put in and the S&P 500 spent the remainder of the day rallying only taking a short midday break before continuing on to made the highs of the day near the close. The following noteworthy companies are scheduled to report earnings before tomorrow’s open: ALE, BAM, COTY, CPB, DTE, H, IPG, IPGP, ITT, JMP, LECO, LPNT, MINI, POR, RRGB, SJM, SNI, TRW, VFC, VTR,…
Market dips early but fights back
Index & Sector performance 1/21/14 The Market: This is the type of market that frustrates both the Bull & the Bears. Strong moves in each direction serve to whip weak traders our of their positions. After a very light futures trading session Monday with the Stock Market closed, the S&P 500 futures pressed higher in late Monday/early Tuesday trading. Just before the open the futures printed $1844 and then started to sell off right at the open. The market finally found a bottom near noon EST but only after losing roughly 18 points from the pre-market highs. The S&P 500…
LULU warns and market dives
Index & Sector performance 1/13/14 The Market: The S&P 500 meandered throughout the Sunday evening session, into Monday and even to start the trading day but then around noon EST weakness started to set in and continued to build. Around 2:30 pm EST we had reached R2 support in the future but we posted at StockTwits that this support did not look like it would hold due to the MACD’s formation. That support was indeed lost and the S&P 500 futures (ES) lost another 10 points to the day’s lows and 5 points to the close overall netting a 20+…
Retail sales beat, Unemployment drags
Index & Sector performance 12/12/13 The Market: The market continued picked up where it left losing more ground but not as dramatic as the 1% down yesterday. The majority of the losses where in the beginning part of the day with the market making the lows for the day around 12:30 pm EST and starting to rally. That rally halted around 3pm EST and the market used the last hour to sell off not quite making it back to the midday lows. In economic data, Retail Sales number beat expectations and with Core Sales doubling expectations posting a 0.4% and…
S&P 500 holds 1800
Index & Sector performance 12/10/13 The Market: On what amounted to only a small down day with the S&P 500 losing roughly 5 points, the index was able to hold the $1800 level as well as the 20 day SMA which it recently regained after a one day close below on 12/5/13. It was a light economic data day with the NFIB Small Business index coming in as expected posting a 92.5 with expectations at 92.7 and the previous reading 91.6. Wholesale inventories were higher than expected with a 1.4% reading when consensus was 0.3%. The previous month’s reading was…
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…
US Government shuts down and gains open up
Index & Sector performance 10/01/13 The Market: The old market adage Buy the rumor and Sell the news is somewhat in affect here today with the markets reaction to the Government shutdown. As we noted in last night’s Game Plan, with the realization of the shutdown now in affect and the worry of the shutdown gone, short term longs would look for opportunity to trade a bounce. A gap up was quickly consolidated after roughly 30 minutes of trading and then pressed higher until 12:30 pm EST. After 12:30 there was a roll over which took the index down until…
Ben to the rescue!
Index & Sector performance 9/18/13 The Market: The clock struck 2pm EST and it is time for Big Ben and the Fed to put all the recent speculation, at least for now, to rest. Neither changes to the current $85B bond purchased program nor the fed funds target rate. That news sparked a near 30 point rally which ultimately closed up 23 points from the announcement. Besides the Federal Reserve rate decision, in economic data we had building permits and housing starts which both came in lower than the previous month and also below expectations but with all due respect…
Great Initial Claims data but….
The Market: The markets saw a small down day which after the recent bullish action only seems to be best described as a consolidation. The leading sector of the day was technology which saw Apple (AAPL) Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) lead but the next best sector was the Consumer Staples and the standout there was Walgreen (WAG) which caught an upgrade to Conviction Buy at Goldman Sachs. In economic data there was a great deal of data including the often watched Initial Jobless Claims which came in better than expected posting a 292K number vs the consensus estimate of…