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…

The NightCap

The Market: Overall a dull session as the markets remainder in a tight range for the entire day but we expect to see volatility in many individual names as this will be a very active earnings week with many big names reporting.  As always we will highlight the names that reported after the close as well as those scheduled to report pre-market tomorrow but please remember that you can often  look ahead a few days under the Events Calendar section. If an active earnings wasn’t enough, we also have an active Economic Calendar with the FOMC Statement and Rate decision…

Another flat session overall

Index & Sector performance 7/24/14 The Market: Another relatively flat session across the broad major indices as earnings continue to drive most individual stock movements. The NASDAQ (QQQ) and S&P 500 (SPY) have both managed to breakout to new 52 week highs this week and hold those breakouts so far but the S&P 500 Equal Weight index (RSP) and Dow (DIA) have yet to follow.  The Russell 2000 (IWM) is up on the week but far from new 52 week highs and also seems vulnerable to fill the downside gap left from Tuesday. Speaking of the IWM, we noted in…

Early volatility wanes, dull day

Index & Sector performance 6/2/14 The Market: Overall a quiet day in the market if you look at the overall performance but that does not show the early volatility the market saw when the S&P 500 futures dropped roughly 10 points at the open to only “V” bottom and spike back up near where the drop occurred.  After that it was tight trading the rest of the day leaving a small up day in the Dow & S&P with the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 closing on the downside. Today there was some drama around ISM Manufacturing PMI after it was…

Triple witching tomorrrow

Index & Sector performance 12/19/13 The Market: Today trading range was rather tight after yesterday’s explosion with the entire day’s range in the S&P 500 only about 9 points.  Tomorrow will be options expiration and a Triple Witching which can come with some volatility. In economic data today we sub a much worse than expected Unemployment claims number come in at 379K when 366K was expected.  Other key data also underperformed expectations with Existing Home Sales missing expectations (4.9M vs. 5.04M) and Philly Fed Manufacturing Index (7 vs. 10.3).  Tomorrow we get GDP and Monday 12/23 we have Core PCE,…

Beige Book helps market off lows

Index & Sector performance 12/4/13 The Market: The S&P 500 started with a gap down which was quickly bought and rallied to slightly positive on the day but that rally topped at 11am EST and made its way back down to and through the earlier lows.  The market found a bottom prior to the Beige Book coming out but the release did not hurt the rally and the S&P 500 finished near flat on the day and above the 20 day SMA. In economic news we saw ADP Non-Farm Employment Change come in much better than expected posting a 215K…

Fed day snaps S&P 4 day win streak

Index & Sector performance 10/30/13 The Market: A small gap up on the open was quickly sold and the market pulled back but losses were relatively contained until the Fed announcement which sent the S&P spiking lower.  Buyers did then step in and used the last hour of trading to help close the index off the lows but not enough to keep from snapping the S&P 500’s 4 day win streak. In economic news, ADP Non-Farm came in lower than expected printing a 130K with 151K the expectation.  Core CPI was also light coming in at 0.1% when 0.2% was…