March 19, 2024

$50 is the new $5….

The Market: As expected, volatility continues and $50 point swings are becoming as common as $5 point swings use to be.  We expect volatility to remain high but would not be surprised to see the magnitude of the swing start to temper. Today was important because after two straight days of gap ups that sold off into the close, today managed to hold and extend on the gap after an intraday pullback.  As we noted in Monday’s write-up,  the market is very short-term oversold and we would expect a bounce so today’s action is not surprising but we will be…

Low Volume Slow grind Higher

Index & Sector performance 2/17/15 The Market: Monday the markets were closed in observance of President’s Day.  As trading started back Monday evening, the futures traded lower but by the open Tuesday all the loses were recouped and after an early session consolidation the index pressed toward new closing highs.  Volume was light but this could be due to the winter storms around the nation.  All broad indices on the WSC Scoreboard are noticeably higher YTD with the Dow (DIA) lagging and the NASDAQ (QQQ) leading. In individual sectors it a little more mixed.  HealthCare (XLV) was the clear leading…

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…