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…
S&P 500 closes at new highs
Index & Sector performance 10/17/13 The Market: The government put the debt ceiling behind the nation….until the beginning of next year. The temporary resolution should take the issue off the front pages, for now. The markets started with a gap lower which was quickly bought up and a strong rally continued to build off the 10/09 lows with the S&P 500 posting all time closing highs. In economic news Unemployment Claims came in at 358K vs consensus expectations of 357K so inline and then the Philly Fed Manufacturing index saw a small drop but was better than expected. CNBC reported…
Waiting on Washington
Index & Sector performance 9/30/13 The Market: The lack of a deal from Washington on the impending government shutdown seemed to eight on trader’s mind. While the S&P was able to rally after a gap down in early trading, the rally was short lived and around 1:30 pm EST the market again lost ground although was able to remain above the early morning lows In economic data we had Chicago PMI which came in slight better than expected with a 55.7 reading when 54.5 was expected. Tomorrow we have Final Manufacturing PMI, ISM, Construction spending and Total Vehicle Sales. In…
AAPL outshines BBRY buyout
Index & Sector performance 9/23/13 The Market: The market picked up early Monday where it left off Friday gaping lower on the open and continuing lower until roughly 11:30 am EST when the S&P 500 was able to bottom and turn with unfortunately what seems to be not much support or enthusiasm from traders. From the WSC Scoreboard, the largest drag on the Market today was the Financials (XLF) and leading them down was Regions Financial (RF) which closed down 2.27%. RF closed right at the 150 day SMA and if it cannot find support there the upward sloping 200…
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 -9.53 (-0.06%) to 15,238.59;S&P 500 -0.57 (-0.03%) to 1,642.81;NASDAQ -0.38 (-0.01%) to 2,990.49 Coming off last week’s action the market chose to use today to consolidate. It started with a strong gap higher that immediately sold off and then again rallied near the morning’s highs and this was all before noon EST. After roughly 12:30 pm EST, the market drifted lower and closed off but closer to the lows of the day than the highs. After such a stong move, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more consolidation for the days to come. News of the day included Apple Computers (AAPL) which kicked off the…
Daily Wrap
DJIA +8.60 (+0.06%) to 15,303.10; S&P 500 -0.91 (-0.06%) to 1,649.60; NASDAQ -0.43 (-0.01%) to 2,991.02 The market started with a drop but spent the remainder of the day working to regain those earl losses and while only the Dow was successful, the other indices made a valiant effort closing just ever so slightly lower. In stock news Procter & Gamble (PG) was a big story of the day as their CEO resined and is being replaced by former CEO A.G. Lafley. It seemed as though Wall Street approved of the change as PG closed over 4% higher for the day. In merger news, Valeant (VRX) closed up over…
Week in Review
DJIA +67.58 (+0.47%) to 14,397.07; S&P 500 +6.92 (+0.45%) to 1,551.18; NASDAQ +12.28 (+0.38%) to 3,244.37 This week was all about Jobs data and the build up to a number that didn’t disappointing posting a 236K non-farm employment change when consensus expectations were around 158K. This also took the Unemployment rate down to 7.7% from 7.9%. Cue to the cynicism regarding the number and the way it is calculated and it is not that I disagree but the fact also is that the method of calculation is not changed month to month so there is a frame of reference where better is better…