Market Recap for Wednesday, January 18, 2017 Financials (XLF, +0.83%) were back on track Wednesday as mortgage finance ($DJUSMF), life insurance ($DJUSIL), investment services ($DJUSSB) and banks ($DJUSBK) led the equity charge. It was a bifurcated day with the Dow Jones retreating, but the S&P 500, NASDAQ... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 17, 2017 Money rotated towards defense on Tuesday as our major indices saw a day of profit taking. The small cap Russell 2000 was hit particularly hard, dropping 1.44%. But all of the key indices were lower as the banks' failure to break... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 13, 2017 Friday may have seemed like a ho-hum kinda day as the Dow Jones actually finished with a loss for the session. But there was significant strength in both the more aggressive NASDAQ and Russell 2000, not to mention that the four sector leaders... READ MORE
Banks threatened another breakout on Friday before stalling and dropping after an early morning surge higher. Bank of America (BAC) credited higher interest rates for its earnings beat Friday morning and said it was anticipating significantly higher net interest margins in 2017. So how much higher will the 10 year... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 12, 2017 Healthcare (XLV, +0.10%) and utilities (XLU, +0.08%) finished in positive territory and provided sector leadership on Thursday, but the remaining sectors and all of our major indices finished the day in negative territory. Financial stocks (XLF, -0.85%) performed worst as... READ MORE
Stryker Corporation (SYK), a medical technology company, preliminarily reported their latest quarterly results and indicated they'd be ahead of expectations. That announcement resulted in a gap up and breakout above previous price resistance on Wednesday. Over the past couple days, we've seen a bit of selling... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 12, 2017 The U.S. Dollar Index ($USD) fell for the fourth time in the past six trading sessions after sideways consolidating for a couple weeks prior. This hesitation and recent profit taking has provided fuel for a rebound in gold ($GOLD) and silver ($SILVER)... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 10, 2017 It was another bifurcated market day on Tuesday, but under the surface there was much more bullishness than on Monday. For one, six sectors rose instead of one. Secondly, all of the aggressive sectors gained ground, led by industrials (XLI, +0.42%) and... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, January 9, 2017 Dow 20k watchers were left hanging another day as the NASDAQ was the only major index to gain ground on Monday. And speaking of lone leaders, healthcare (XLV, +0.42%) was the only sector to post a gain as falling crude oil prices... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 6, 2017 Let's party like it's 1999.....9. Do you think that big round numbers don't matter on Wall Street? If so, you might want to think again. Since December 13th, the Dow Jones ($INDU) has traded above 19950... READ MORE
I've been writing relentlessly about the relative strength in energy shares (XLE) over the past several months and here I go again. Go ahead and talk about too much supply. Hang onto the weakening demand argument if you'd like. I'm simply following the charts... READ MORE
Normally, I provide a daily blog article every day that the U.S. stock market is open. That eliminates Saturdays and Sundays. I'm making an exception today to share some historical information that I believe you'll find useful as you work your way through 2017. Also,... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 5, 2017 The 10 year treasury yield ($TNX) tumbled on Thursday, dropping more than 8 basis points to close at 2.37% - its lowest daily close since December 7th's 2.35% finish. The sudden interest in treasuries could have been the result... READ MORE
Since the beginning of 2012, Fastenal Co. (FAST) has tested its 48-49 price resistance zone on seven different occasions - most recently four weeks ago - without any success. But this multi-year consolidation follows a prior uptrend so I expect that we'll see a breakout sooner rather than... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 4, 2017 Materials (XLB, +1.46%) and consumer discretionary (XLY, +1.33%) were easily the two best performing sectors on Wednesday to lead our major indices to a second consecutive day of across-the-board gains in 2017. There is a very strong correlation between January performance... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 3, 2017 Healthcare (XLV, +1.31%) took over sector leadership on Tuesday to open 2017 as the Dow Jones U.S. Biotechnology Index ($DJUSBT) jumped 2.05%. It's not too surprising to historians as January tends to be very kind to both the... READ MORE
Note First, I want to wish everyone a very happy new year! Second, I'm excited to announce that Greg Schnell (think Canadian Technician and Commodities Countdown) and I will be co-hosting a Stock Market 2017 Outlook webinar in mid-January where we'll compare notes and share our... READ MORE
Technology stocks (XLK) have shown signs of slowing momentum via lower weekly MACD readings while prices have moved higher. Component industry groups like semiconductors ($DJUSSC) and software ($DJUSSW) have similar momentum issues and that contributed to industry weakness as technology was one of the worst performing sectors last week. One... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, December 29, 2016 The 10 year treasury yield ($TNX) closed at 2.48% and hit an intraday low of 2.46% to test its rising 20 day EMA for the first time since early November. Not too surprisingly, the Dow Jones U.S. Banks Index ($DJUSBK)... READ MORE
NVIDIA Corp (NVDA) has been one of the best performers of 2016, nearly quadrupling during the year. Its long-term chart has been phenomenal, but its weekly RSI and stochastic have been overbought since early May. That's a very long time of outperformance and a rest is not only... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, December 28, 2016 It's been awhile since this happened, but on Wednesday all nine sectors declined, led by energy (XLE, -1.08%), industrials (XLI, -1.05%) and financials (XLF, -1.02%). The carnage was evenly spread as consumer staples (XLP, -0.61%) and consumer... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, December 27, 2016 Eight of the nine sectors rose on Tuesday with only consumer staples (XLP, -0.02%) losing ground. The NASDAQ and Russell 2000 once again were the leading indices, powered by home construction ($DJUSHB) and renewable energy ($DWCREE). Home construction looks very interesting on... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, December 23, 2016 The Russell 2000 gained 0.65% on Friday to lead the major U.S. indices. The NASDAQ followed with a 0.28% gain while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones pushed higher, but only by 0.13% and 0.07%, respectively.... READ MORE
First, U.S. markets are closed today in observance of the Christmas holiday. Second, my regular Trading Places article which covers the prior days market action, in addition to pre-market action, the current outlook, sector/industry watch, historical tendencies and earnings and economic reports, will be back Tuesday morning as... READ MORE
I ran a scan of NASDAQ 100 stocks with RSIs between 40-45 and it returned eight stocks - ATVI, BIDU, FB, JD, PCLN, QVCA, VIAB, VOD. I ran this scan because RSI 40-45 many times offers up great support to an uptrending stock. So the next step, of course, was... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, December 22, 2016 Yesterday's action here in the U.S. had a short-term bearish tone to it, but there were certainly no price breakdowns and no reason to believe it was anything other than a bout of profit taking during a continuing bull market... READ MORE
Applied Materials (AMAT) printed a shooting star candlestick on Thursday, with a long-term negative divergence in play on both its daily and weekly charts, signs of slowing momentum to the upside from both an intermediate- and long-term perspective. AMAT, just a few days ago, printed a reversing dark cloud cover... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, December 21, 2016 Energy (XLE, +0.16%) was one of just two sectors that headed higher on Wednesday with materials (XLB, +0.4%) being the only other. That wasn't enough to carry the market higher as our major indices all finished fractionally lower on... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, December 20, 2016 Treasuries were sold off on Tuesday with the corresponding 10 year treasury yield ($TNX) moving back up to 2.57%. The recent high was 2.60% so the TNX is not far from another new high. Of course, the bounce in the TNX... READ MORE
Market Recap for December 19, 2016 Over the past three months, technology (XLK) has been the 6th best performing industry group, beating out only the three defensive groups - consumer staples (XLP), utilities (XLU) and healthcare (XLV). But the XLK is not in bad shape technically. Instead, we've... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, December 16, 2016 Utilities (XLU, +1.22%) soared on Friday and came very close to a breakout above reverse head & shoulders neckline resistance. This is also very near overhead trendline resistance as well. While we don't want to see the defensive utilities sector... READ MORE
Ryder System (R) was having a huge 2016 until the past several days. Profit taking has kicked in and R has dropped 10% in that brief span. The obvious question from a trader's perspective is.....when does it make sense to jump in on the long side. Well,... READ MORE
We're two weeks away from another stock market year in the books. Where does the time go? Anyhow, since this is the last ChartWatchers newsletter of 2016, it would be an appropriate time to check out the best and worst industry group awards for 2016. Drum roll please!... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, December 15, 2016 With treasury yields on the rise again, it wasn't surprising to see financials (XLF, +0.85%) on top of the sector leaderboard. The problem, however, is that we're beginning to see slowing price momentum on key industry groups -... READ MORE
Healthcare stocks (XLV) have been underperforming the benchmark S&P 500 for the past 4-5 months, but they're beginning to show some life as the XLV has been the best performing sector ETF over the last week. Recently, I noticed pharmaceuticals testing a major price support level... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, December 14, 2016 As expected, volatility kicked in around 2pm EST yesterday as the Fed delivered what traders most likely anticipated, but still didn't want to hear. Rates are going higher. Everyone was looking for the 25 basis point hike so that didn'... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, December 13, 2016 Well it's Fed day and both equity and bond markets are prepared for a quarter point rate hike. The big question, however, is whether the market is ready to hear what the Fed has to say about future policy guidance. Will... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, December 12, 2016 The Dow Jones advanced for the 21st time in the last 25 trading days on Monday, capturing yet another record high close on Monday. While it was led by mostly defensive areas like utilities, REITs and pharmaceuticals, offensive areas didn't exactly... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, December 9, 2016 Gains permeated our major indices on Friday, but it was difficult to overlook the flight to safety. Perhaps traders were just growing a bit more cautious after the huge run higher the past month or maybe it was big money knowing that the... READ MORE
The U.S. stock market has been flying high over the past month, but shares of Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) have fallen close to 30% since reaching an all-time high in late September. Technically, there's hope that BUD is at or approaching a very significant bottom, however. Let'... READ MORE