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…

$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…

Market push and pull continues

The Market: With concerns over volatility in China, weak Economic data, and the FOMC statement, the market gapped down and continued lower throughout the early trading session before marking another big intraday reversal.  After dipping below the 200 day SMA, the S&P managed to rally from over 25 points down to slightly up on the session in intraday trading but then couldn’t hold the gains and sold off into the close. Today’s action is actually a good micro representation of the push and pull in the market this year. As we noted last week, we expect volatility to continue and…

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…

Eurozone fears trigger late day sell-off

Index & Sector performance 2/4/15 The Market: Monday’s reversal in the S&P 500 (SPY) of the 200 day SMA continued Tuesday and was extending in today’s session, even with Oil trading lower, until later in the trading day when the index dropped sharply.  Traders pointed to news our of Europe that the ECB will not allow Banks to use Greek government debt as collateral for loans as the catalyst.  The Dow (DIA) was the only index on the WSC Scoreboard which managed to finish higher but that was greatly due to Disney (DIS) beating EPS and finishing up 7.63% on…

Central bank news abroad drives headlines

Index & Sector performance 1/21/15 The Market: It was a relatively choppy session which saw the Dow (DIA), S&P 500 (SPY), and NASDAQ (QQQ) manage to finish higher while the Russell 2000 (IWM) closed lower.  There were reports out of Europe that the ECB Executive Board proposed the purchase of EUR 50B/mo of bonds in a program that should last at least a year.  There was more news from outside the U.S. with a surprise rate cut in Canada to counteract the sharply declining oil prices. Energy (XLE) led the charge today as all sectors on the WSC Scoreboard finished…

Tight trading ends with pop higher

Index & Sector performance 11/18/14 The Market: After multiple sessions trading in a tight range the broad indices broke-out to new highs.  It is worth noting that volume was again light but that has been the case throughout much of this recent rally after the mid October bottom.  In the after hours session the futures started to give back some of today’s gains so we will be looking to see if today was a false breakout which gives way to a pullback or if the indices can hold. In individual sectors, HealthCare (XLV) led finishing 1.61% higher helped by strong…

Increased chatter of a 10+% decline

Index & Sector performance 4/3/14 The Market: A pre-market pop in the S&P 500 emini sent the index as high at 1887.50ES but that move was short lived and the index was trading lower by the open and continued lower throughout the early and midday trading sessions.  It wasn’t until the afternoon trading when the S&P bottomed and marched higher into the close.  The emini has continued higher in after hours trading closing in on the pre-market highs essentially negating the entire move lower in today’s session. It is worth noting that the ECB left rates unchanged and noted they…

Early dip met with strong buying

Index & Sector performance 2/13/14 The Market: The markets began to dip overnight and into early morning trading.  Weaker than expected economic data didn’t help but just as the market officially opened the bottom was put in and the S&P 500 spent the remainder of the day rallying only taking a short midday break before continuing on to made the highs of the day near the close.   The following noteworthy companies are scheduled to report earnings before tomorrow’s open: ALE, BAM, COTY, CPB, DTE, H, IPG, IPGP, ITT, JMP, LECO, LPNT, MINI, POR, RRGB, SJM, SNI, TRW, VFC, VTR,…

Fed open to scale back causes pullback

Index & Sector performance 11/20/13 The Market: Initial optimism on better than expected economic data pre-market saw early selling as the S&P pulled off the highs of the day in the first hour of trading and then the market meandered waiting for the Fed minutes to be released.  After the 2pm EST announcement the market began selling off as the Fed showed they are prepared to scale back on the rate of asset purchases.  The S&P 500 was able to use late trading to close a few points off the lows of the day. In economic data, Core CPI came…