Lots of data yields flat finish
Index & Sector performance 7/30/14 The Market: Lots of Economic Data/announcements in today’s session but when the dust settled it was surprisingly a flat session with the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) leading while the Dow (DIA) finished slightly lower and the S&P 500 (SPY) finished slightly higher. The leading sector on the WSC Scoreboard was Retail (XRT) finishing the day up 1% however Retail remains the only individual sector on the WSC Scoreboard that is down for the year. The laggard was the Utilities (XLU) and decisively so finishing the day down 1.69%. We remain interested in some…
Indices take back losses plus
Index & Sector performance 5/22/14 The Market: Overall today was a quiet day in the market which saw green across the entire WSC Scoreboard with the Dow and NASDAQ leading the charge followed closely by the S&P and finally the Russell 2000 which is getting use to lagging. At 2pm EDT the FOMC minutes were released and discussed risks to the economy including U.S. housing, the Russia-Ukraine situation, and China’s economic slow down but this news did not appear to bother traders. Tomorrow is be the biggest economic data day of the week which includes Unemployment Claims and Existing Home…
GDP disappoints but market ignores
Index & Sector performance 4/30/14 The Market: As you can see in the table below, the U.S. Q1 GDP number came in well below expectations. While Q1 was not expected to be a high growth quarter, clearly analysts did not expect a near negative number. Certainly the colder than expected weather could have and likely did play a role but on our opinion you cannot completely blame a miss like this on the weather. So why might traders and investors be willing to look past this data besides the weather? Possibly because a number like this allows the Fed to…
Increased chatter of a 10+% decline
Index & Sector performance 4/3/14 The Market: A pre-market pop in the S&P 500 emini sent the index as high at 1887.50ES but that move was short lived and the index was trading lower by the open and continued lower throughout the early and midday trading sessions. It wasn’t until the afternoon trading when the S&P bottomed and marched higher into the close. The emini has continued higher in after hours trading closing in on the pre-market highs essentially negating the entire move lower in today’s session. It is worth noting that the ECB left rates unchanged and noted they…
Market digests yesterday’s move
Index & Sector performance 3/27/14 The Market: In Economic news, Unemployment Claims came in at 311K which is better than the 326K estimate. GDP came in a hair light at 2.6% vs 2.7% est. and Pending Home Sales missed big posting a -0.8% vs a 0.1% est. while the previous number was revised lower. Tomorrow’s data is not as critical as today’s but we do have multiple events including Consumer Confidence. In early trading the emini reached 1835ES and twice found support there before managing to rally roughly 9 points off the lows to the close. All in all it…
Market dips early but fights back
Index & Sector performance 1/21/14 The Market: This is the type of market that frustrates both the Bull & the Bears. Strong moves in each direction serve to whip weak traders our of their positions. After a very light futures trading session Monday with the Stock Market closed, the S&P 500 futures pressed higher in late Monday/early Tuesday trading. Just before the open the futures printed $1844 and then started to sell off right at the open. The market finally found a bottom near noon EST but only after losing roughly 18 points from the pre-market highs. The S&P 500…
S&P Futures play MA pinball
Index & Sector performance 12/16/13 The Market: The made strong gains today after what looked like a horrible start to the week. In overnight trading Sunday the S&P 500 dropped t0 $1754 (March 2014 emini contract) tagging the 50 day SMA and then built a rally off that support. Surprisingly by the morning the futures had not only regained everything that was lost from Sunday evening’s open but also but in some gains. Those who do not look at the futures may have never even known of the rough start. The futures then rallied pre-market to the 20 day SMA…
Thank you to our Vets!
Index & Sector performance DATE The Market: Any given day stocks will make big moves but today with the bond market closed in observance of Veteran’s Day the broad markets seemed happy to consolidate. Do not be surprised if today’s action is the calm before a strong directional move. Being that today was a Bank Holiday, there was no government economic data announced. We did see the NFIB Small Business Index come in slightly below expectations posting a 91.6 when 93.5 was expected. Story Stocks: Merger Monday as ViroPharma (VPHM) agreed to be acquired by UK drugmaker Shire (SHPG). The…
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…
Week in Review
DJIA +11.75 (+0.08%) to 14,712.55; S&P 500 -2.92 (-0.18%) to 1,582.24; NASDAQ -8.11 (-0.28%) to 2,840.55 With the exception of the Dow, the markets were on the downside Friday but only slightly so on what was a relatively uneventful options expiration. All in all I would call today another consolidation day. The S&P 500 started relatively flat and then moved lower until noon EST where it set a bottom and rallied the remainder of the day including a quick peak into positive territory just before the close which was eventually sold leave the small loss on the day. In economic news we saw real GDP growth…