April 20, 2024

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…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +21.05 (+0.14%) to 14,839.80; S&P 500 +3.96 (+0.25%) to 1,597.57; NASDAQ +20.49 (+0.71%) to 2,887.44 Today saw some jockeying for position by the indices as they started the day moving lower and then recovered to close slightly up for the session.  In economic news the Case/Shiller index rose 1.2% from the previous month’s reading and topped estimates with a 9.3% vs 9.1% estimate.  Chicago PMI on the other hand fell short of estimates recording a 49 vs 52.5 estimate.  Consumer confidence came in mainly inline with a 68.1 vs 68.4 estimate. Before the open, Pfizer (PFE) reported earnings which missed on both revenues ($13.5B vs $14B) and EPS (54c…

Week in Review

DJIA -0.08 (0.00%) to 14,865.06; S&P 500 -4.52 (-0.28%) to 1,588.85; NASDAQ -2.59 (-0.09%) to 2,856.48 Friday started with a small gap down that wasn’t greeted with the usual snap up buying and this helped lay the ground work for an early morning swoon taking the S&P 500 down over 10 points from Thursday’s close.  Right around 11am EST the S&P bottomed and for the remainder of the day was able to grind higher leaving a relatively small loss for the day (the Dow nearly closed positive).  This type of action is not uncommon at stretched levels as well as when there is…

Daily Wrap

DJIA -44.23 (-0.32%) to 13,910.19; S&P 500 -5.89 (-0.39%) to 1,501.95; NASDAQ -11.35 (-0.36%) to 3,142.31 Today the markets moved lower and more decisively so compared to that other down day this.  What was also interesting is that the Small Caps lead the way down and generally I like to see the Small Caps lead (along with the Techs if I can get them).  This still has to be taken in stride based on the current trend in place but the recent action definitely does highlight the need for a consolidation as I have been calling for and also that…