March 19, 2024

Oil trades below $50 & leads market lower

Index & Sector performance 1/5/15 The Market: The market was again led by Oil’s decline as we closed below $50 per barrel for the first time since 2009.  In the Analyst Comments below you will see a downgrade for Caterpillar (CAT) by JP Morgan.  In the note the analyst commented that up to 30% of CAT’s revenue could be under pressure due to lower oil prices.  Similarly, Evercore downgraded Terex (TEX) to Hold with an $26 target and United Rentals (URI) to Sell with a $87 target citing concerns that oil’s sharp decline will hurt energy investments and thus construction…

ECB helps U.S. Dollar & market higher

Index & Sector performance 11/6/14 The Market: Comments from ECB President Mario Draghi suggesting that the central bank is committed to stimulating the region’s economy helped send the S&P 500 (SPY) and the U.S. Dollar higher on the session.  As would be expected the Euro/Dollar cross was under pressure finishing the U.S. trading session at new 2 year lows. A strong dollar is not a bad thing and increases global purchasing power of U.S. companies and individuals.  However, as we saw recently with the Trade Balance, a strong dollar can hurt exports.  Coupled with concerns over crude oil’s recent decline…

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…

S&P 500 makes new closing highs

Index & Sector performance 8/20/14 The Market: A respectable session for the Dow (DIA) and S&P 500 (SPY) as the SPY finished at a new closing high and the DIA is not all that far off.  The NASDAQ (QQQ) managed to finish slightly up on the session and while not as strong as the DIA or SPY, the QQQ has been the clear leader on the year.  The Russell 2000 (IWM) continues to lag and was unable to finish the session higher like the other broad indices however the index did manage to rally well off the earlier lows. In…

Energy green in a sea of red

Index & Sector performance 6/11/14 The Market: As we noted late last week and reiterated in Monday’s report, the S&P 500 closed outside of its Weekly (20, 2, -2) Bollinger Bands which has previously lead to counter trend moves for a few weeks to months.  While we respect the strong uptrend in the market, we also believe this is time to exercise caution on the long side, at least for the broad market. One additional note.  While many market pundits in the media have been looking for pull back and becoming cautious recently, they also seem very willing to step…

Apple finally lands China

Index & Sector performance 12/23/13 The Market: The market was able to produce a gap higher to start this shortened trading week which will include a half day of trading Christmas eve and the market will be closed Wednesday December 25th in observance of Christmas.  After the gap itself the S&P remained in a roughly 4-5 point trading range the entire day on light volume. There was a fair amount of economic data released today but nothing that really tipped the balances.  Core PCE and Consumer spending came in right at expectations while Personal Income slightly missed (0.2% vs. 0.4%…

Small gains break 5 day slide

Index & Sector performance 9/26/13 The Market: An early push higher on the S&P 500 was short lived and topped around 10 am EST falling all the way back to the open and even drifting into negative territory.  The market then bounced, failed and after retesting the days lows used the last hour to rally into the close. In economic news the Unemployment Claims data came in better than expected posting a 305K number when expectations were of 319K.  Unfortunately the remainder of the news was not as good with GDP coming in below expectations printing a 2.5% number when…

Week in Review

DJIA +67.58 (+0.47%) to 14,397.07; S&P 500 +6.92 (+0.45%) to 1,551.18; NASDAQ +12.28 (+0.38%) to 3,244.37 This week was all about Jobs data and the build up to a number that didn’t disappointing posting a 236K non-farm employment change when consensus expectations were around 158K.  This also took the Unemployment rate down to 7.7% from 7.9%.  Cue to the cynicism regarding the number and the way it is calculated and it is not that I disagree but the fact also is that the method of calculation is not changed month to month so there is a frame of reference where better is better…