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…
$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…
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…
Market recovers after weak GDP
Index & Sector performance 6/25/14 The Market: After a quiet overnight session, the S&P 500 futures spiked lower after the Government announced worse than expected GDP estimates for the first quarter of the year but, after the open, buyers stepped in and all four main indices from the WSC Scoreboard closed higher. In individual sectors HeathCare (XLV) and Transportation (IYT) outperformed closing up 1.06% and 0.99% respectively. The only sector closing lower on the WSC Scoreboard was Consumer Staples (XLP) finishing down 0.16%. The leader in the XLV was Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) finishing up 2.96% after announcing positive Phase III…