March 19, 2024

Volatility & Chop continues

The Market: Volatility continues to be the name of the game which is why you can have a 40+ point day like today and still have the S&P 500 within a range/wedge.  While it is possible that we extend today’s rally by gaping higher tomorrow, it is not our expectation and if we do open higher tomorrow we would watch the downward sloping 20 day SMA as resistance. Overall, a light Economic Calendar this week Thursday and Friday having the most significant data points (Unemployment Claims, PPI, and Consumer Sentiment).       Reported EPS 9/8/15 After the Close:  …

Watch out for traps

Index & Sector performance 12/9/14 The Market: The S&P 500 found itself down over 20 points within the first hour plus of trading  as traders pointed to concerns over China and Greece.  Throughout the early drop the Russell 2000 (IWM) remained strong down only a fraction of the other indices and then was the first to turn positive on the day.  The IWM’s resilience continued throughout the remainder of the trading session and finished the clear leader. Today’s action certainly feels like another Bear trap where the market looks as though it is about to start a major prolonged slide…

Tech leads quiet up session

Index & Sector performance 9/10/14 The Market: Administrative note: we will be traveling the remainder of the week so there will be no updates after tonight. A nice bounce back in the markets after yesterday’s late day sell off.  The leader in the broad indices was the NASDAQ (QQQ) keying, again, off Apple (AAPL) which finished the session up 3.07%. After being a relative outperformer yesterday in a bad tape, HeathCare (XLV) was the leader on the WSC Scoreboard today finishing the session up 0.70%.  Utilities (XLU), yesterday’s biggest loser, saw more downside follow-through finishing the session 0.44% lower.  Also…

Energy heads lower in mixed session

Index & Sector performance 9/8/14 The Market: Overall another low volume mixed session which saw the S&P 500 (SPY) and Dow (DIA) close slightly lower while the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) finished slightly higher. On the WSC Scoreboard the Energy sector (XLE) sticks out finishing the session down 1.56%.  After strong moves we like to see what stocks bucked the trend in the sector and one notable outperformer today was Valero (VLO) which finished the session up 0.96%. Not much Economic data to start the week but finishes strong with Unemployment Claims Thursday followed by Retail Sales and…

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…

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,…

Apple, Autos, Earnings & DC

The Market: The markets started off somewhat muted and then took off heading strongly higher and even closing not much off the highs.  Th leader of the day was the Tech sector and inside tech it was Apple (AAPL) that had a strong showing closing up over 2% on the day on analyst upgrades and optimism on multicolored iPhones and lower price points..  Lagging was the Utilities which via the ETF XLU only managed to eek out a small gain. In economic news, the Trade balance came in with a greater deficit than expected while auto sales were stronger than…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +8.60 (+0.06%) to 15,303.10; S&P 500 -0.91 (-0.06%) to 1,649.60; NASDAQ -0.43 (-0.01%) to 2,991.02 The market started with a drop but spent the remainder of the day working to regain those earl losses and while only the Dow was successful, the other indices made a valiant effort closing just ever so slightly lower. In stock news Procter & Gamble (PG) was a big story of the day as their CEO resined and is being replaced by former CEO A.G. Lafley.  It seemed as though Wall Street approved of the change as PG closed over 4% higher for the day. In merger news, Valeant (VRX) closed up over…

Week in Review

DJIA -0.08 (0.00%) to 14,865.06; S&P 500 -4.52 (-0.28%) to 1,588.85; NASDAQ -2.59 (-0.09%) to 2,856.48 Friday started with a small gap down that wasn’t greeted with the usual snap up buying and this helped lay the ground work for an early morning swoon taking the S&P 500 down over 10 points from Thursday’s close.  Right around 11am EST the S&P bottomed and for the remainder of the day was able to grind higher leaving a relatively small loss for the day (the Dow nearly closed positive).  This type of action is not uncommon at stretched levels as well as when there is…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +128.78 (+0.88%) to 14,802.24; S&P 500 +19.12 (+1.22%) to 1,587.73; NASDAQ +54.54 (+1.94%) to 2,859.21 Gap and go explains today’s action as we gaped higher on the open and then rallied the remainder of the day with the S&P 500 closing up over 1.2%.  No need to spend anymore on the that. No real big news on the Economic front today but tomorrow we have Unemployment Claims tomorrow with the consensus forecast I saw of 362K.  Coming of that poor Job numbers, I think this will be watched closely and I will update the site with the number when it comes out…