Market Recap for Tuesday, November 7, 2017 Small cap stocks felt a slight tremor on Tuesday as the Russell 2000 ($RUT, -1.26%) suffered its worst day in nearly three months. While losses never feel good, I believe the RUT is in a bullish advance similar to the one it... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, November 6, 2017 Energy (XLE, +2.29%) shares made a huge advance on Monday as money rotated to this once-forgotten sector in a very big way. Bull markets thrive on broad participation in rallies and the XLE had been one sector not participating. That is... READ MORE
Special Notes First, please join me and Erin Swenlin for MarketWatchers LIVE every day from Noon EST to 1:30pm EST. We discuss key technical developments that you need to be aware of as you manage your wealth. Previously, MarketWatchers LIVE aired just three days a week, but beginning today,... READ MORE
IBM has been a very interesting stock to watch, but not to own. After 23 consecutive quarters of declining revenues, traders finally found something to be excited about in IBM's latest quarterly earnings report. Five years ago, IBM traded near 165. At Friday's close, it was... READ MORE
When considering this question, I believe the correlation indicator tells us most of what we need to know. After all, we're pondering which global market movements tend to be reflected in similar movements in the U.S. market. For purposes of the U.S. market, I'll... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, November 2, 2017 Financials (XLF, +0.94%) and industrials (XLI, +0.57%) led a Dow Jones rally on Thursday. Goldman Sachs (GS) paced the financial stocks in the Dow with more than a 1% gain, while Boeing (BA) was the best performing Dow component and the... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, November 1, 2017 U.S. stocks jumped higher out of the gates at Wednesday's open, but was unable to hang onto those gains - especially on the NASDAQ. We did see a bit of strength in the final couple hours, though, after the FOMC policy... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, October 31, 2017 Don't look now, but crude oil prices ($WTIC) are on the verge of moving to a 2 1/2 year high. Energy (XLE, +0.33%) has shown life since ending its downtrend that began back in December 2016. Rising prices in... READ MORE
WellCare Group (WCG) posted quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street consensus estimates and the stock soared above recent price resistance. Volume surged as traders accumulated the healthcare provider. The Dow Jones U.S. Health Care Providers Index ($DJUSHP) broke out recently and WCG has performed exceptionally well on a relative... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 30, 2017 Weakness permeated the U.S. stock market on Monday with the small cap Russell 2000 losing more than 17 points, or 1.15%. Other U.S. indices mostly followed suit, although the NASDAQ gave back very little from Friday's massive gains... READ MORE
Special Note Every Monday, I provide possible short-term trade setups (today's featured setup is reflected below in the Monday Setups section). All of these setups, along with setups from the past few weeks, can be accessed by CLICKING HERE. If you'd like to review these... READ MORE
I'm a big fan of candlesticks, particularly reversing candlesticks as they many times signal that a short-term downtrend has ended in an overall uptrending stock. One of my favorite trading strategies is to trade strong stocks off gap support. So what happens when both strategies meet? Well,... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, October 26, 2017 U.S. indices spent Thursday attempting to bounce back from losses earlier in the week. Based on that goal, it was mostly a successful day as most major indices finished with fractional gains. The NASDAQ lagged, ending the session with a loss of... READ MORE
The Dow Jones U.S. Gold Mining Index ($DJUSPM) held price support on its late-September swoon, but that was not the case with the recent selling. The reason? It's probably the reverse head & shoulders breakout on the U.S. Dollar (UUP). A rising dollar normally sends... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, October 25, 2017 It's difficult to know what to expect after U.S. equities posted their largest decline since September 5th. I don't recall the last time we saw all nine sectors lower, but that's exactly what we saw on... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, October 24, 2017 The Dow Jones powered to another record high close on Tuesday, finishing the session higher by 167.80 points. Gains on the other major indices were much more modest as the Dow Jones pushed to record levels behind the strength of two components,... READ MORE
The Dow Jones U.S. Biotechnology Index ($DJUSBK) broke out of serious longer-term consolidation when it cleared 1800 price resistance in mid-June. Since then, we've seen a nice uptrend, characterized by rapid advances and steady pullbacks. The group lost nearly 120 points from Friday's... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 23, 2017 After early strength, Monday was a seller's market. As you might expect on one of the more bearish days of late, defensive sectors showed renewed relative strength with utilities (XLU, +0.05%) and consumer staples (XLP, -0.07%) the two top... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 20, 2017 Friday was a day of more all-time high closes. It's been quite redundant, but the bulls certainly don't mind. This time we saw leadership from aggressive areas of the market - a very bullish sign indeed. Financials (XLF, +1.... READ MORE
Let me start by stating that the NASDAQ 100 has earned 61.9% of its gains over the past 20 years during the fourth quarter. Yep, October through December has accounted for nearly two thirds of the gains on the NASDAQ 100. So you would think that most of its... READ MORE
There are different ways to view best seasonal stocks depending on whether you're interested solely in average returns for a particular month or time period or if you're interested in the percentage times that a security rises for a particular month or time period. Thus, is... READ MORE
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Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) was one of the darlings of Wall Street in 2017.....until early August. Since that time, AAOI has declined nearly 60% in less than three months and has shown no signs of a reversal. The most recent drop a little over a week ago was as a... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, October 18, 2017 The Dow Jones sliced through 23000 like a hot knife through butter. Many times, these round numbers represent a psychological challenge for traders, but that was not an issue for this bull market. Instead, the Dow Jones soared 160 points to yet another... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, October 17, 2017 Healthcare stocks (XLV, +1.34%) led the Dow Jones to yet another all-time high close as the Dow traded above 23000 on an intraday basis for the first time in its history, closing just beneath that psychological level at 22997. It was... READ MORE
Over the past twenty years, Mettler Toledo Intl (MTD) has averaged gaining 23% per year, but that's not the most impressive performance stat for the company. During the months of October and November, MTD has risen 85% and 95% of the time, gaining an average of 3.3%... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 16, 2017 In true bull market fashion, U.S. stocks rose once again in rather boring action. The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ gained 0.37%, 0.18% and 0.28%, respectively, to each finish at all-time closing highs. The record... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 13, 2017 There are plenty of superstitious folks out there, but apparently the majority of stock traders don't fall under that umbrella. U.S. equities again rose on Friday with the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ all climbing to all-... READ MORE
Juniper Networks (JNPR) was under heavy selling pressure last week to open October, a seasonally bullish month for JNPR as the stock has averaged gaining more than 13% each October over the past two decades. The irony here is that we've seen JNPR twice in recent years open... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, October 12, 2017 It was certainly a bifurcated day among sectors. Four sectors advanced, including industrials (XLI, +0.53%) and utilities (XLU, +0.52%), while five declined. Financials (XLF, -0.76%) were hardest hit as the 10 year treasury yield ($TNX) has struggled to gain any... READ MORE
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) spent over a year with its SCTR among the highest of all individual stocks. It was an impressive rally for sure as its stock price rose from below $2 to above $15 in 13 months. But even the hottest stocks need to evenually consolidate to unwind... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, October 11, 2017 A strange pair - utilities (XLU, +0.43%) and technology (XLK, +0.33%) - combined to lead our major indices higher on Wednesday with the NASDAQ rising 0.25% to close at another all-time high. Seven of the nine sectors ended the day in... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, October 10, 2017 The Dow Jones finished 69 points higher on Tuesday to close at yet another all-time high. It's an illustration of how equities can remain overbought for an extended period of time. The Dow Jones moved into overbought territory (RSI 70+... READ MORE
F5 Networks (FFIV) has a seasonal history of performing extremely well in October and November, but technically the stock has been a wreck since topping in March 2017 and the early October returns haven't been very good either. There is hope, however, in the form of upcoming price... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 9, 2017 The U.S. major stock market indices took a breather - if you want to call it that - on Monday as the Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ all fell less than 0.25%. Only the Russell 2000 lost more than that,... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 9, 2017 Extremely overbought and extended conditions. Complacency in the form of a very low Volatility Index ($VIX) reading. Geopolitical tensions. Then a negative jobs report. The market was surely doomed on Friday, right? Wrong. That complacency, as evidenced by near record low readings in... READ MORE
While we've seen many indices, ETFs and individual stocks break out over the past several weeks, there are still many that are consolidating in bullish fashion and those, upon breakout, provide solid trading opportunities. Enter DXC Technology Company (DXC). Over the past two months, the S&P... READ MORE
I've been following the stock market for a long time and I'm always searching for that perfect signal that never fails. I still haven't found it and there are never any guarantees in the stock market, BUT following the rotation of money to aggressive... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, October 5, 2017 Well, if you were worried about an underperforming technology sector and the inability of the NASDAQ 100 ($NDX) to reach new highs, you can stop worrying. Both broke out on Thursday with emphatic moves to clear highs established over the summer. First, check... READ MORE
Blackberry's (BBRY) demise from 2008 through 2012 has been well documented and I'm not really interested in dwelling in that past. More recently, however, BBRY has attempted on multiple occasions to clear price resistance in the 11-12 range. Clearing such resistance would be technically significant... READ MORE