Watch out for traps
Index & Sector performance 12/9/14 The Market: The S&P 500 found itself down over 20 points within the first hour plus of trading as traders pointed to concerns over China and Greece. Throughout the early drop the Russell 2000 (IWM) remained strong down only a fraction of the other indices and then was the first to turn positive on the day. The IWM’s resilience continued throughout the remainder of the trading session and finished the clear leader. Today’s action certainly feels like another Bear trap where the market looks as though it is about to start a major prolonged slide…
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…
Fed gains quickly given back
Index & Sector performance 10/9/14 The Market: All the gains saw from yesterday’s Fed driven rally were taken back in today’s trading with the Dow (DIA) and S&P 500 (SPY) closing down nearly 2% while the Russell 2000 (IWM) lost 2.7%. The NASDAQ (QQQ) was helped by Apple (APPL) which managed to post a small gain of 0.22% on the session but the QQQ’s still finsihed 1.62% lower. Some big numbers put up across the sectors led by Energy (XLE) which finished down 3.67% and is now over 4% lower on the year. The XLE underperforming is not new but…
EoD gains mask intraday swing
Index & Sector performance 9/17/14 The Market: Early in the session the markets were quiet as traders awaited the FOMC statement and speculated if the wording of the statement would be changed. The answer was that not much changed and specifically the Fed continues to state that they will keep key interest rates near zero for a “considerable time”. The initial reaction to the release was a sharp decline but buyers quickly stepped in and the S&P 500 recovered and then rallied to fresh highs on the day before finishing the session back where it started. The leading sector on…
Intraday swing leave only small gains
Index & Sector performance 4/28/14 The Market: After moving slightly higher in the overnight and early trading, the S&P 500 quickly dropped in the midday session before finding a bottom around 1:30 pm ET. While the S&P fell a few points short of making it back to the earlier intraday highs, it did manage to post a small gain on the day. The Dow led the major indices helped by a 4.2% gain from Pfizer (PFE) while the Russell 2000 closed slightly down on the day. Many big name stocks in the news including the aforementioned Pfizer (PFE) who…
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…
AA kicks off a new earnings season…tomorrow
Index & Sector performance 10/07/13 The Market: The markets started down strong but found early support and rallied into midday but couldn’t hold and press toward Friday’s close and instead sold off during the last hour of trading closing near the early morning slows but just slightly above. Hard to believe we are kicking off another earnings season but Alcoa (AA) will start tings off again Wednesday 10/8/13 after the close. While AA no longer has the significance it once did, it still is known for ushering in the season and many larger more impactful names will then be reporting….
Daily Wrap
DJIA -111.66 (-0.76%) to 14,550.35; S&P 500 -16.56 (-1.05%) to 1,553.69; NASDAQ -36.26 (-1.11%) to 3,218.60 Today in the pre-market we were essentially flat/slight higher and even after a poor ADP number the S&P 500 was able to open slightly higher but that was short lived and the rest of the day we saw market declines which at the lows approached down 20 points in the S&P 500 or over 1%. Along with the weak ADP and general concerns on slower global growth we also had two other event weighing on the markets. First the U.S. Defense Secretary, Chuck Hagel, stated that the…