Early optimism wanes
Index & Sector performance 6/24/14 The Market: After a very tight trading range in the overnight session, the market moved higher after the New Home Sales and Consumer Confidence data was released at 10 am ET. Both handily beat estimates rising to their best levels in 6 years, however, this optimism proved to be short lived as the S&P 500 topped in midday trading and spent the remainder of the day losing ground finally finishing 12 points lower in the S&P 500 cash index and roughly 20 points off the intraday highs. In individual sectors, Energy (XLE) clearly led all…
Fed helps S&P to new highs
Index & Sector performance 6/18/14 The Market: After what amounted to a roughly 1.5% correction from the 6/9/14 highs to the 6/12/14 lows, the S&P 500 has since rallied and as of today’s close made a new intraday and closing all time high. The majority of the gains were realized after the FOMC statement and rate decision where the Fed left the rate unchanged and lowered monthly bond purchases by $10B. We have taken a cautious stance on the broad market since 6/6/14 due to multiple overbought conditions across multiple time frames. While the pullback from 6/9 – 6/12/14 helped…
Higher inflation ahead of Fed
Index & Sector performance 6/17/14 The Market: In today’s Economic news, CPI came in higher than expected while the Building Permits and Housing Starts were below estimates. The initial reaction off this data sent the S&P 500 futures trading lower but ultimately the index bottomed before the open and continued higher the remainder of the day. Checking the WSC scoreboard the Russell 2000 led the charge while the other indices closed flat or slightly higher. In individual sectors, the Financials (XLF) posting a 1.02% gain and the Retailers (XRT) finishing up 0.87% were the strongest groups. In the Financials, MetLife…
The Taper begins…
Index & Sector performance 12/18/13 The Market: A strong day in the market with the gains all coming after the 2 pm EST FOMC report. The S&P 500 was in a holding pattern until just before the report when it started to drop lower. After the report there was a quick spike lower (likely on the headline of bond buying decreasing) and the S&P 500 tagged the 50 day SMA where the index then bottomed and ripped higher. From Peak to Trough the S&P 500 gained rouhgly43 points! In economic news today we saw Housing Starts handily beat expectations (1.09M…