March 19, 2024

The NightCap

The Market: Global concerns sparked an initial move lower in early trading but the markets found support near the $2070 region in the SPX and then managed to finish the session slightly higher.  Energy (XLE) was the clear leader on the WSC Scoreboard followed by Retail (XRT) and Materials (XLB).  Transportation (IYT) lagged hurt by the State Department’s travel ban issued late Monday in response to the recent geopolitical events. After making a low in late August, the XLE rallied until early November and has since held in well consolidating below the November 6th high.  XLE may be setting up…

$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…

Early Gains quickly fade

Index & Sector performance 1/06/14 The Market: Pre-market optimism was met with early selling which took the S&P 500 from $137 on the open own to $1824 by midday.  The market bounced along crafting a bottom until roughly 2pm EST when the S&P managed to rally off the lows.  While it never made it back to the morning high, the S&P managed to rally back toward even on the day but then sold off in the last hour closing near the lows of the day. In economic news we saw Factory Orders and Services PMI come in as expected while…

Charts to Watch

Let’s start tonight with the McClellan Oscillator and a look at the reading from yesterday’s close.  We see that a -100 reading is very uncommon but can lead to snap back rallies.  What has to be seen is whether that extreme level leads to a more sustained bottom or like we saw in June will there be multiple extreme readings before a more sustained bottom occurs. Arch Coal (ACI): After a strong rally this stock has held initial support  on the pullback.  I will be watching to see if the stock can continue to consolidate on low volume to set-up…

Week in Review

DJIA  -35.71 (-0.27%) to 13,135.01;  S&P 500  -5.87 (-0.41%) to 1,413.58; NASDAQ  -20.83 (-0.70%) to 2,971.33; Friday’s action was red across the board and it was never in doubt.  The downside was lead by the tech and inside tech the leader down was Apple Computers (AAPL) and names inside the AAPL universe.  We had a small amount of economic data today but nothing that would have been able to or did change the course.  The bias was clearly to go home today flat or short but not long as we saw the selling pick up after 2pm as traders have…

Daily Wrap

DJIA  -2.99 (-0.02%) to 13,245.45; S&P 500  +0.64 (+0.04%) to 1,428.48; NASDAQ  -8.49 (-0.28%) to 3,013.81; Today we started with a gap higher which consolidated in an orderly fashion until just after noon when we had the release of the Fed data.  The market broke to new highs for the day but then started to give back some of the gains around 2 and then steadily trended lower the last hour finally closing just up for the day after spending a few minutes negative.  This would be a classic, buy the rumor and sell the news type action.  Even sometimes…