March 19, 2024

Energy leads while healthcare lags

The Market: Overall a consolidation session in the markets as the Dow (DIA) finished higher while the S&P 500 (SPY), NASDAQ (QQQ), and Russell 2000 (IWM) finished lower . Energy stocks continue to remain in vogue as the XLE finished 2.22% higher on the session and marked the 5th straight day of higher closes.  Materials (XLB) was the next closest outperformer finishing up 1.3% and Technology (XLK) was the only other sector to finish up. Lagging in today’s session was HealthCare (XLV) which finished down -2.35% and saw all components finish the day lower except for Mallinckrodt (MNK) and Dentsply…

Strong start to the week led by Tech

The Market:     Reporting EPS 7/14/15 Pre-Market:   Reporting EPS 7/14/15 After the Close:   Analyst Comments:

Early gap up fades, XLE leads lower

Index & Sector performance 4/21/15 The Market: The Nasdaq (QQQ) was the only sector that managed to finish the session higher while the Blue Chip Dow (DIA) was the leader to the downside. After spending the majority of the year down, Energy (XLE) has recently rallied to up YTD but there was no optimism today as the sector finished over 1% lower.  Also finishing lower was Utilities (XLU) down 0.89%, Materials (XLB) down 0.74%, and Financials (XLF) down 0.50%.  Today’s clear leader was HeathCare (XLV) which managed to close up 0.68% on the session. No tracked Economic data yesterday or today…

Eurozone fears trigger late day sell-off

Index & Sector performance 2/4/15 The Market: Monday’s reversal in the S&P 500 (SPY) of the 200 day SMA continued Tuesday and was extending in today’s session, even with Oil trading lower, until later in the trading day when the index dropped sharply.  Traders pointed to news our of Europe that the ECB will not allow Banks to use Greek government debt as collateral for loans as the catalyst.  The Dow (DIA) was the only index on the WSC Scoreboard which managed to finish higher but that was greatly due to Disney (DIS) beating EPS and finishing up 7.63% on…

EPS helped shrug off bad overseas data

Index & Sector performance 11/20/14 The Market: It doesn’t look like the S&P 500 (SPY) had a strong session but considering the futures were down roughly 10 points pre-market reportedly due to weak data out of Europe and China, to finish up a few points is a strong showing.  Yesterday’s laggard was today’s leader as the Russell 2000 (IWM ) finished up over 1% clawing back most of yesterday’s losses and the Dow (DIA) was helped by Intel (INTC) which gained 4.66% after announcing a dividend hike and solid 2015 expected revenue growth. In individual sectors, Retail (XRT) led today…

This down day came with volume

Index & Sector performance 7/8/14 The Market: *** Administrative Note: Due to traveling, this will be the last update for the week. *** A second straight day lower for all 4 broad market indices on the WSC Scoreboard but setting today apart from other recent down days was a noticeable pick-up in volume.  Leading the charge to the downside was the NASDAQ (QQQ) and Russell 2000 (IWM) both finishing 1.2% lower. We remain cautious on the overall broad market and as noted in last night’s report are watching the IWM closely.  Its failure to lead and make new highs with…

Very quiet start to the week

Index & Sector performance 7/7/14 The Market: Today was a very quiet trading session which saw the market give back some of last week’s holiday gains.  Looking over the Economic Calendar, this is a light data week and while Alcoa (AA) will kick off earnings season tomorrow after the close it will still be a while before we are in the thick of earnings season. We are watching the Russell 2000 (IWM) closely.  In good times you expect to see the Tech Stocks and Small caps lead.  While the NASDAQ (QQQ) has come back to do its part this year,…

S&P on 5 day win streak

Index & Sector performance 4/21/14   The Market: The S&P 500 has been on an impressive  5 day winning streak but much like the “V” bottom we say back in February this year, this rally is coming on lower than average volume with today being by far the lowest in the S&P 500 sector ETF “SPY”. We stated in our 4/14 write-up that we would not be surprised to see the market used short term oversold levels and the shortened holiday Op-Ex week to rally.  The question now is as traders get back to the desk in both the U.S….

Choppy session ahead of Jobs

Index & Sector performance 3/6/14 The Market: Overall today was a choppy session which started with an overnight breakout which couldn’t gain steam and retraced back to the breakout levels in early morning trading.  The market then found a bottom and rallied to the 1880ES pivot which acted as resistance twice finally sending the index back down toward the original breakout region in late day trading. We expect the choppy trading to continue until the Non-Farm payroll number tomorrow at 8:30am EST.  We have consensus estimates currently at 151K with an Unemployment number of 6.6%.  Below is a recap of…

The Calm before Jobs data storm?

Index & Sector performance 1/9/14 The Market: A mixed consolidation day in S&P 500 saw the futures up in the pre-market only to sell off at the open.  That sell off persisted until 11am EST losing roughly 15 S&P points from the pre-market highs and then the S&P bottomed and staged a rally which didn’t make it back to the pre-market highs but did take back more than half of what was lost. In Economic data today, Unemployment claims came in better than expected posting a 330K number when 337K was expected but the previous week was revised about 6K…