March 19, 2024

The NightCap

The Market: Stocks had another tough session following a second day where the Chinese market was halted.  Chinese officials have removed the circuit breaker restrictions for tomorrow’s session and traders appear to be preparing for a volatile session but it will be interesting to see if allowing the index to freely trade will ultimately help it bottom — even if only for the short-term. Another session where no Sector saw gains but the relative outperformers were Retail (XRT), which was helped by Wal-Mart (WMT) after gaining 2.3% on the session, and Monday’s leader Utilities (XLU). Along with what happens overnight…

Market bounces but finishes where it started

The Market: An initial gap higher in the morning was quickly sold as it appeared traders were hesitant before the FOMC Rate decision and statement.  After the announcement, the market pressed to new intraday lows but then quickly turned and rallied to new intraday highs before closing at the opening print. Utilities (XLU) led the WSC Scoreboard sectors finishing up 0.84%.  The XLU reached our target support region and is making a move off that support after a long decline but still has a lot of resistance above and will need to show this is indeed a bottom and not…

Eurozone helps U.S. go green YTD

Index & Sector performance 1/8/15 The Market: The Dow (DIA), S&P 500 (SPY) and Nasdaq (QQQ) are all green for the year as of today’s close with the Russell 2000 (IWM) lagging down 0.8%.  Considering there have only been about 5 trading days in the new year, this is not saying much but the recent 2 day recovery is impressive and reminiscent of what we saw all 2013 and 2014. Helping the U.S. market today was statements from Mario Draghi that the ECB will discuss adding more or new monetary stimulus at their next rate meeting in two weeks.  This…

Yellen to the rescue

Index & Sector performance 12/17/14 The Market: Fueled by continued caution from the Fed in raising rates and a rebound in Oil prices, the broad indices roared higher with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge finishing up over 3%. We noted in Monday’s comments that a gap lower Tuesday could be a great trading opportunity.  For anyone that did not just day trade Tuesday’s gap down and are still holding, we would be using relatively tight stops to manage the position as there is still some concern lower levels could be seen before this decline is over.    …

XLE hit hard on overall mixed session

Index & Sector performance 10/27/14 The Market: A rumor Thursday of a doctor infected with the Ebola virus being rushed to an NYC hospital helped take the market off the highs and then in Thursday’s overnight session it was confirmed that the doctor indeed had Ebola which sent the futures spiking lower but by Friday morning they were off the lows from the overnight session and marched higher closing near Thursday’s intraday highs. Today was much more of a muted consolidation session with the S&P 500 cash index remaining within a roughly 13 point range which while not historically small…

Russell outperforms in ugly session

Index & Sector performance 10/13/14 The Market: Another 1+% down day across the major indices on the WSC Scoreboard except for the Russell 2000 (IWM) which finished the session down only 0.42%.  YTD the IWM is still the clear loser down 9.55% but today’s outperformance is interesting and something to watch.  IWM’s underperformance starting earlier in the year was a warning so if it begins to outperform on a consistent basis going forward it should be noted. It does not feel like very long ago when the only down sector on the WSC Scoreboard Was Retail (XRT) but now we…

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…

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…

Citi & Retail Sales aid rally

Index & Sector performance 4/14/14   The Market: The S&P 500 started lower in Sunday’s overnight session but quickly found a bottom and moved off the lows into early trading.  Met with better than expected retail sales and an earnings beat by Citigroup (C), the rally continued until just after noon ET before topping out and starting a slide back toward the overnight lows.  It appeared the market was yet again faced with a late day sell off but with one hour left in trading the S&P 500 found a bottom and snapped back toward the highs of the session….

FOMC minutes ease market concerns

Index & Sector performance 4/9/14 The Market: After bottoming and bouncing in yesterday’s session, the S&P 500 futures spend the majority of the overnight session consolidating in a tight range.  This lead to an early breakout, retest, and continuation higher but it was after the FOMC minutes were released at 2pm ET when the strongest gains were realized.  Concern the Fed would be aggressive with rate hikes subsided and traders rewarded the market with 1+% gains across the board with the Nasdaq leading the charge up 1.7%.  Next on the economic data schedule is Unemployment Claims which are released at…