March 19, 2024

Sharp snap back rally — SPY up YTD

Index & Sector performance 3/12/15 The Market: Strong performance today with the Russell 2000 (IWM) leading the charge for the 2nd straight day followed by the Dow (DIA) and S&P 500 (SPY).  Friday will be an interesting session as traders will have to decide how they want to end the week.  In the very short term the SPY looks stretched so we would consider using a gap up tomorrow morning as a (very) short-term selling opportunity. In individual sectors it was the Financials (XLF) which led the way finishing up 2.13% followed closely by Consumer Discretionary (XLY) which ended up…

Dollar ralley continues as Market slides

Index & Sector performance 3/10/15 The Market: A strong down session across the board with no index or sector spared.  We noted yesterday that the action to the upside appeared to not have conviction and today the lack of buying turned into selling.  Traders pointed to concerns over the eventual rate hike from the Fed and the strength in the Dollar as reasons for concern. We expect to see some form of a bounce as we have started to see positive divergence set-up on the shorter term intraday charts of the S&P 500 (SPY) and NASDAQ (QQQ) but any moves…

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…

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…

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…

S&P 500 pullback coming soon?

Index & Sector performance 6/6/14 The Market: Yet again the Russell 2000 led in today’s trading as all 4 broad indices from the WSC Scoreboard closed higher.  Also after spending much of 2014 in the red, the Russell 2000 (IWM) is now ever so slightly higher on the year. Healthcare (XLV) and Utilities (XLU) were the lone laggards in the individual sectors while Energy (XLE), Industrials (XLI), and Transportation (IYT) were the notable leaders.  Taking a peak further at the Industrials, which were the overall leader, we see Fluor (FLR) posted a 2.77% gain today following up on a strong…

FOMC statement & new Chair tomorrow

Index & Sector performance 3/18/14 The Market: We would not be shocked to see the market meander overnight and into tomorrow until the FOMC statement and Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s first press conference.  While we do not expect there to be a great difference in message or tone from the Fed, do not be surprised if the market uses this opportunity to send a message to Yellen if there is something that is not liked. In the meantime, traders should watch  today’s high of 1867ES as a break could be signaling a move to 1880ES and the index should see…

S&P regains the 50

The Market: Today did not have anything to really speak of in terms of Economic data and the remainder of the week is not necessarily uneventful but also not one of the more data laden weeks we see.  Tuesday morning brings the NFIB Small Business Index, Thursday the Unemployment Claims as well as Fed Budget Balance and Import prices. and Friday rounds out the week with Consumer Sentiment and Inflation Expectations as well as Retail Sales and PPI.  We track the data and the numbers posted in the Events Calendar. Story Stocks: Shareholders of Delta Air Lines (DAL) have had…

Daily Wrap

DJIA +80.03 (+0.53%) to 15,040.62;S&P 500 +13.66 (+0.85%) to 1,622.56;NASDAQ +13.16 (+0.45%) to 2,950.30 The looked poised to resume its downward move into Friday’s jobs number but just after noon EST firmed up and started an impressive rally off the lows which also continued into the after market (so far).  From the lows to the close the market rallied nearly 24 points.  In economic news today we had Unemployment claims which came in roughly inline with a 346K number.  As alluded to earlier, tomorrow we get Non-farm Employment data and I have current forecasts at 167K and 7.5% rate. SodaStream (SODA) got an initial pop in…

Week in Review

DJIA -25.03 (-0.17%) to 14,514.11; S&P 500 -2.53 (-0.16%) to 1,560.70; NASDAQ -9.86 (-0.30%) to 3,249.07 Finally a down day!  After 10 straight days higher the Dow and S&P 500 finally has a respite albeit small.  Some looking at the SPY today might have thought the markets were lower or noticed a disruption and that is due to the fact that the SPY pays a dividend which it went ex-dividend Friday for roughly $0.70. In economic data we had CPI which came in slightly hot with a 0.7% increase when 0.5% was expected.  When looking at the “core” PCI we met expectations of up…