March 19, 2024

The NightCap

The Market: An initial gap higher was immediately sold but an afternoon surge helped the Dow, S&P and NASDAQ finish higher while greatly paring losses in the Russell 2000.  Downside momentum seems to be waning and today’s mixed session is likely pointing to a bottom.  In all likelihood that bottom will only be short-term but we will have to see how the action takes place. Ideally, for the start of a move higher, we would like to see a gap down (or strong move lower in early trading) tomorrow which takes us near or below today’s lows which is again…

The NightCap

The Market: Global concerns sparked an initial move lower in early trading but the markets found support near the $2070 region in the SPX and then managed to finish the session slightly higher.  Energy (XLE) was the clear leader on the WSC Scoreboard followed by Retail (XRT) and Materials (XLB).  Transportation (IYT) lagged hurt by the State Department’s travel ban issued late Monday in response to the recent geopolitical events. After making a low in late August, the XLE rallied until early November and has since held in well consolidating below the November 6th high.  XLE may be setting up…

Market closes highe but no conviction

Index & Sector performance 3/9/15 The Market: Overall it was a quiet session with not much news or Economic data.  The market was able to bounce back today after Friday’s strong sell-off led by the Dow (DIA) but volume was on the light side showing that market participants are not necessarily convinced the decline is over. In individual sectors Industrials (XLI) was the clear leader as names like Boeing (BA), 3M (MMM), and Caterpillar (CAT) put in strong sessions finishing up 1.06%, 1.22% and 0.94% respectively.  Energy (XLE) was the lone loser on the session finishing -0.72%.  One bright spot,…

Market continues to grind

Index & Sector performance 2/19/15 The Market: The slow grind into options expiration continues with the S&P 500 (SPY) and Dow (DIA) finishing slightly lower while the Russell 2000 (IWM) finished slightly higher and the NASDAQ (QQQ) led.  We would expect to potentially see volatility tomorrow not only due to options expiration but also potential headline risk out of Europe. Overall a mixed session as yesterday’s sector leader to the upside, the Utilities (XLU), was today’s downside leader finishing 1/13% lower while Technology (XLK) followed closely by Consumer Discretionary (XLY) led to the upside. With only Flash Manufacturing PMI tomorrow,…

Revisiting December’s lows

Index & Sector performance 1/6/15 The Market: Oil appears to still be affecting the broad market and causing caution in investors as crude, which lost the psychological $50 level yesterday, traded down over $2 in today’s session. Yesterday we remarked that a gap down in the morning could be a short term trading opportunity to the long side but unfortunately we opened flat to slightly up, negative the set-up, and then continue to crawl higher in the first hour of trading before the indices began to sharply lose ground.  Today’s sharp drop eventually found support at the mid-December trading lows…

Next target the 50 day SMA?

Index & Sector performance 3/13/14 The Market: A strong down day in the market but coming into the day people may have thought that would be a result of a poor Unemployment Claims number but we actually saw a better than expected 315K (334K est).  After the report the index meandered higher into the open and then after peaking out above trend line resistance, turned and started what proved to be a day long decline. At 11:30 am we posted on StockTwits that the decline in the ES looked like it had lower to go especially due to the slope…

Lots of movement, little results

Index & Sector performance 3/10/14 The Market: Today was a yet another choppy session but for day traders there was a great deal of opportunity.  The S&P 500 emini ultimately moved 40 points between support and resistance while the S&P 500 cash index only managed to close down roughly a point for the day.  Starting with Sunday evening’s trading the ES contract lost ground over night finding support at the $1868ES pivot and then rallied pre-market to the $1878ES pivot.  Playing Pivot Pinball the ES tested the $1868ES support after the open to yet again hold and rally back toward…

Reason or Excuse?

Index & Sector performance 3/3/14 The Market: Depending on your bias you likely either believe the events transpiring with Russia “scared” the market causing it to drop today or you believe the drop was already in the cards based on the technicals and the Russian incident just gives the news something concrete to point to as the cause.  While we tend to be much more in the latter than former camp, we also subscribe to the believe it doesn’t really matter as in either case we are left with what happened and the decision what to do now. The S&P…

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+…

A low volume flat session

Index & Sector performance 11/25/13 The Market: Monday’s trading started with some optimism but that was sold in early trading and the market started climbing back toward the highs of the day after a pullback.  The rally efforts topped around 2:30 pm EST and the market then declined into the close but after the dust settled it was a flat day.  Again volumes were on the light side. Today’s economic calendar was light with only Pending Home Sales on the docket and came in worse than expected posting a -0.6% when 2.2% was expected.  Tomorrow we get more housing data…