Market Recap for Wednesday, February 14, 2018 Wall Street sure did look like it was heading for a very rough day at 8:30am EST on Wednesday. Very poor economic news hit traders with a 1-2 punch as the consumer price index jumped 0.5% instead of the 0.3%... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, February 13, 2018 The U.S. stock market settled down on Tuesday, trading in a much narrower range, and finished with gains across its major indices for the third consecutive day. While it was good to see the market stabilize after such panicked selling, there remains... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, February 12, 2018 Wall Street saw more gains on Monday, continuing the strength we saw late during the Friday session. Most of the strength, however, came during the morning session as the benchmark S&P 500 hit 2660, rising 130 points or approximately 5%, off... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, February 9, 2018 For the first time in 18 months, the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ all closed out a week beneath their rising 20 week EMAs. After not seeing a meaningful pullback (more than 3%) for well over a year, our major... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, February 8, 2018 For now, forget about the strong earnings season that we just witnessed. Also, forget about bond yields rising, which I view as a very bullish development generally-speaking as it allows money to rotate from the more defensive bond market to the more aggressive... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, February 7, 2018 With the exception of a fractional gain in the small cap Russell 2000, late day selling resulted in losses on each of our major indices. The Dow Jones spent much of the day in positive territory and sported a 270 point gain with... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, February 6, 2018 Volatility is the name of the game right now and big swings - both up and down - should be expected in the near-term. Yesterday was the bulls' turn as our major indices rallied back, led by the Dow Jones' 567... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, February 5, 2018 What a day and especially what a final hour! It was very reminiscent of selling episodes in 2008 where our major indices were losing a percent every few minutes. From a bullish perspective, there's little defense from panicked selling other than... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, February 2, 2018 It was an ugly day on Wall Street. In fact, it was the ugliest day on Wall Street since June 24, 2016, when the Dow Jones last fell more than 600 points. Friday's drop was 665 points and the technical damage... READ MORE
Identifying The Candidates I've included the month-by-month seasonal information for all NASDAQ 100 ($NDX) stocks in an Excel spreadsheet. In an effort to identify the best seasonal stocks on the NDX, I first considered the number of years history for each stock. For instance, I eliminated JD.com... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, February 1, 2018 We saw a lot of bifurcation in the market on Thursday. The more aggressive NASDAQ and Russell 2000 rebounded and finished in positive territory, while both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 fell on the session. Four sectors finished higher, while... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 31, 2018 Following the heavy selling on Tuesday, the bulls were just hoping to stop the bleeding. I'd say they had some success as the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ all finished in positive territory. Overall action was bifurcated, however,... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 30, 2018 This day was a long time coming. The U.S. stock market's uninterrupted surge to record all-time highs day after day, week after week and month after month needed a break. It needed relief. Yesterday that relief was found....and it... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, January 29, 2018 We saw something different in the U.S. stock market on Monday. We closed in negative territory on all of our major indices and we closed at or near lows for the day. There was little or no bargain hunting at the end... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 26, 2018 The bears were absolutely stymied on Friday as the major indices surged to unprecedented levels. Despite the very overbought conditions that have persisted on many indices for four months now, bulls dominated the action and show no signs of letting up. When you... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 25, 2018 Utilities (XLU, +1.55%) easily enjoyed its best day of 2018 on Thursday as significant price support, combined with falling treasury yields, triggered an explosive move higher as buyers could not get enough of the beaten-down sector. Here's the chart: The... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 24, 2018 Only the Dow Jones was able to end Wednesday's session in positive territory, but all of our major indices remain very strong with accelerating bullish price momentum. Sectors and industries have taken their turns leading U.S. stocks higher and yesterday... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 23, 2018 The tech-laden NASDAQ powered forward to new all-time highs on Friday, closing above 7400 for a second consecutive session and now approaching 7500. All of our major indices ended higher, except for the Dow Jones, which saw a last minute bout of selling... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, January 22, 2018 There was a lot of good things happening on Monday. First of all, one of the worst days historically has been the Monday after options expiration Friday. That historical weakness never materialized yesterday as all of our major indices trended up throughout the... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 19, 2018 Strength resumed on Friday, with three of our four major indices closing at record highs. Only the Dow Jones managed to come up short as losses in Dow components IBM, General Electric (GE) and American Express (AXP) held back the index, although it... READ MORE
Bull markets can advance very quickly and can become extremely overbought. It's a challenge psychologically at times to commit new money t0 a stock or ETF, knowing that just days or weeks ago prices were so much cheaper. So what the heck do you do when looking to... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 18, 2018 Thursday was not a great day for the bulls. We haven't seen too many times since the August low where all of our major indices finished lower on the session. Yesterday, however, was one of those days. But the action recently... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 17, 2018 The Dow Jones didn't fail this time. After Tuesday's huge reversal from above the 26,000 level, there were a number of question marks about whether the current rally would continue. The Dow Jones answered those questions rather emphatically... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 16, 2018 Tuesday was perhaps the most bearish day we've seen in quite awhile. For starters, volume on our major indices was the heaviest in the past 6-7 weeks, excluding option expiration Friday on December 15th. But the heavy volume, by itself, wasn&... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 12, 2018 U.S. equities had another nice rally on Friday, this time led by a very strong consumer discretionary sector (XLY, +1.29%). Eight of the nine sectors finished higher, with utilities (XLU, -0.57%) the only area failing to participate. The XLU tends... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 11, 2018 The small cap Russell 2000 ($RUT) led U.S. indices higher on Thursday with more across-the-board record highs being set. The RUT gained 1.73%, more than doubling the advance on any of the other major indices. There were plenty of reasons, but... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 10, 2018 We saw losses across our major indices on Wednesday, but the bulls spent most of the day recovering from steeper losses just after the opening bell. Losses were inconsequential as they ranged from 0.02% on the aggressive Russell 2000 (small caps) to... READ MORE
Note At the bottom of this article, you can type in your email address and hit the green "Notify Me" button to subscribe to my blog for FREE! Then my article will immediately be sent to your email address upon publishing. Thanks! Market Recap for Tuesday, January 9,... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, January 8, 2018 After mostly a weak start on Monday, our major indices resumed their bullish ways and finished with positive returns. The lone exception was the Dow Jones, which dropped 13 points to end its impressive winning streak to open 2018. Weakness in Unitedhealth Group... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 5, 2018 Not even a disappointing jobs report on Friday could slow down this bull market train. U.S. futures were strong before the release of December's nonfarm payrolls and they didn't give up a thing after the release, which showed... READ MORE
HAPPY NEW YEAR! In my first Trading Places blog article of 2018, "Here's One Chart That Screams BUY As We Begin 2018", I highlighted my favorite relative chart in the Current Outlook section. It's one of the biggest reasons why I believe 2018 will... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 4, 2018 Where's the top? Who knows and the bulls don't seem to care. As of Wednesday, the Dow Jones was left out as the only index not to clear a psychological or significant price level for the first time ever... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 3, 2018 We're only two trading days into 2018 and already we've seen the S&P 500's first close ever over 2500, the NASDAQ's first close ever above 7000, the Russell 2000's first close... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 2, 2018 The NASDAQ loves January and January loves the NASDAQ. If there's one month where the NASDAQ really shines on a relative basis, it's January (see Historical Tendencies below) and that index opened the new year like it owns January.... READ MORE
Special Note First, I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Let's make 2018 our best yet! Here are a couple of quick reminders: (1) If you like my Trading Places blog and you'd like to follow my articles every morning, scroll down... READ MORE
Special Note Happy New Year to all and thanks so much for your support of me and StockCharts.com in 2017 (and please subscribe at the bottom of my article - it's FREE!). If you're not a member, your first resolution should be to become one.... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, December 27, 2017 Wednesday's action was characterized by thin volume and low volatility, normal for trading during the holidays. Our major indices moved fractionally higher, with the Russell 2000 ($RUT) being the exception after that index fell during the afternoon session to finish slightly... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, December 26, 2017 Energy stocks (XLE, +0.88%) continued their merry way higher, which really isn't surprising after the sector made a very significant price breakout above the 70 level. With an RSI approaching the 80 level now, however, I wouldn't be... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, December 22, 2017 The major indices all fell back slightly during Friday's pre-Christmas holiday, light volume trading session. Materials (XLB, +0.38%) was the best performing sector, while healthcare (XLV, -0.32% and financials (XLF, -0.28%) lagged. The 10 year treasury yield ($TNX)... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, December 21, 2017 In afternoon trading, all of the major indices except the NASDAQ appeared headed for another record all-time high close. But a late afternoon selling bug hit Wall Street and much of those earlier gains disappeared. The small cap Russell 2000 was able to... READ MORE