March 19, 2024

The NightCap

The Market: Not a great start to 2016 for the Bulls but could have been much worse if not for a late end-of-day rally.   So far in after-hours trading the market has continued higher but we will need to see if these gains hold over-night as well as into early trading tomorrow. No Sector was spared in today’s trading but the XLU was the clear relative outperformer finishing down only 0.21% followed by the worst performer for 2015, XLE, finishing down 0.41%. Tomorrow is a light Economic Data session with only Vehicle Sales being reported but later in the week…

The NightCap

The Market: The market continues to grind higher with the Russell 2000 (IWM) trying to play catch-up of late. Energy (XLE) led all sectors in today’s trading, again, and has been one of the hottest sectors of late although still down nearly -10% YTD. A relatively big data week with ISM Monday, Fed speak & ADP tomorrow, Unemployment Claims Thursday, and official Jobs data on Friday.  Traders concerned about the Fed and if we will see a December rate hike should be paying attention to this week’s data.       Reported EPS 11/3/15 After the Close:   Reporting EPS…

Market churns while XLU heads lower

Index & Sector performance 2/25/15 The Market: Another day of churn as the market continues to grind with an upward bias.  As we posted over at StockTwits we are starting to see a lot of negative divergence setting up on the MACD.  Divergence is not a trigger itself but is showing signs that each move higher comes with less momentum and excitement. Utilities (XLU) was the leader to the downside and a name we recently posted about in the Charts section.   After seeing a lot of people bullish on the name, we laid the road map we felt the Bulls…

Off the 200 Day and up

Index & Sector performance 2/2/15 The Market: The S&P 500 (SPY) started the session lower but found support just slightly above the 200 day SMA which has not been visited since October 2014.  After an initial pop and then pullback the index rallied the remainder of the session to finish over 30 points off the lows.  So far in the after hours the index is holding the gains and consolidating.  Today’s action should be very promising for long traders and you know your stops — below today’s lows. The leading sector on the WSC Scoreboard was Energy (XLE) finishing up…

Can EPS decouple market from Oil?

Index & Sector performance 1/12/15 The Market: We noted in the Thursday end-of-day write-up that the strong gains had to do with positive comments from Mario Draghi as well as Oil prices managing to stabilize for the second straight session.  Unfortunately after managing to hold in Friday,  Oil prices resumed their recent slide today finishing below $46/per barrel.  As we have noted in other write-ups and you can see elsewhere, Oil’s sharp decline brings in concern over global growth and particularly U.S. earnings.  Speaking of earnings, Aloca (AA) is scheduled to kick off the earnings season tonight and below you…

Russell leads overall dull session

Index & Sector performance 11/24/14 The Market: An overall dull session with the S&P 500 (SPY) and Dow (DIA) barely moving while the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) led.  As is expected for the remainder of this shortened holiday week, volume was very light. In individual sectors it was Retail (XRT) posting another great session up 1.32%.  Today the index was greatly helped by Outerwall (OUTR), operators of Coinstar and Redbox, which finished up 12.32%.  Also chipping in was Best Buy (BBY) up 2.29% and Foot Locker (FL) up 3.45%.  After spending much of the year down, the XRT…

News & EPS will dominate week

Index & Sector performance 10/20/14 The Market: This is a very light Economic data week but don’t worry.  Earnings will more than make up for it with a Packed schedule all the way through to Friday. All the indices on the WSC Scoreboard were nicely higher but the Dow (DIA) was the clear laggard after IBM (IBM) lost over 7% due to a disappointing Q3 report which missed on revenues and EPS.  The company also announced that they would no longer be able to meet its goal of $20/share in operating EPS by 2015. Solid results across all the sectors…

Strong start with new highs

Index & Sector performance 5/12/14 The Market: A strong start to the week as a broad based rally in the market was led by the Russell 2000 (IWM) up 2.27% and the NASDAQ 100 (QQQ) up 1.65% while the Dow and S&P reached new closing highs.  The two stand out sectors were Retail (XRT) and the Transportation (IYT) while the Utilities (XLU) lagged closing down 0.92% but remain the largest gainer YTD. We have much more economic data this week and tomorrow all eyes will be on Retail Sales which is released before the open.  Headline sales are expected up…

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…

Market starts on Tryptophan

Index & Sector performance 12/2/13 The Market: Overall not a very active day in this first full trading session after the Thanksgiving holiday and to start December.      Today’s action started with an early dip that was quickly bought and started to rally higher until 12:30 pm EST.  That is where the rally lost steam and started a descent back down toward the earlier lows.  The market reached and went through those lows finally closing at $1800 in the S&P 500.  It is unclear if this slow start to the month is about to start a slide or if it is…