Market Recap for Monday, November 14, 2016 The dollar shot higher on Monday as treasury yields continue to soar. This combination has set the stage for a major rally in financial stocks (XLF) and they have not disappointed. Also, all the selling that's taken place in bonds have... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, November 11, 2016 Friday may not have seemed like a particularly bullish day as the Dow Jones gained just 39 points and the S&P 500 even lost a few points. But check out the Russell 2000's 2.46% gain! Historically, the Russell... READ MORE
President-elect Trump has suggested that his presidency will focus on infrastructure and, as a result, heavy construction ($DJUSHV) finished last week higher by 12.36% to lead all industrial groups. While there are plenty of quality companies to choose from, Granite Construction (GVA) surged 23.80% to follow many... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, November 11, 2016 First let me say a heartfelt thank you to all our veterans today for your service - past, present and future. Please thank those that protected or protect our freedoms every day. Financials (XLF, +3.69%) and industrials (XLI, +2.13%) once again led... READ MORE
Over the past two trading sessions, treasuries are being sold hand over fist with corresponding yields soaring. Financials have exploded higher on this development. This is simply a continuation of what we've seen since the Brexit-related lows in June. Those higher yields will add profits to the... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, November 9, 2016 Talk about your fickle traders. A little more than 24 hours ago with traders around the globe wrestling with an unexpected Presidential victory by Donald Trump, equities sold off hard. The Dow Jones futures were down 800 points at its low. Japan'... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, November 8, 2016 The U.S. stock market paused on Tuesday, awaiting results from the U.S. Presidential election. All nine sectors did manage to finish in positive territory but gains were fairly minimal. The NASDAQ outperformed, rising 0.53% but on just 1.7 billion... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, November 7, 2016 After nine consecutive losing sessions on the benchmark S&P 500, the bulls needed some relief and they woke up to it on Monday. U.S. futures were soaring and looking to erase several days of losses at the opening bell. While... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, November 4, 2016 Friday was a rough day for market bulls, especially when you consider how our major indices finished out the week. The S&P 500 was solidly higher at 2pm EST on Friday.....but the last two hours wiped out all gains and... READ MORE
The past two weeks have not been kind to PayPal (PYPL) as the online payment enabler has dropped roughly 10% since reporting stellar quarterly results and witnessing a breakout to its post-IPO all-time high. PYPL beat estimates on both revenue (slightly) and EPS (.29 vs .27) and the... READ MORE
The "under the surface" signals have been quite bearish for the past 1-2 years. Money has rotated away from aggressive areas and I've discussed it here and my Trading Places blog quite often. But it was very difficult to think bearish thoughts as long as... READ MORE
FireEye (FEYE) hasn't had much to brag about since June 2015, but for those traders with high risk tolerance levels, FEYE could provide very nice returns from its current price level. The cyber security company reported better than expected revenues and EPS after the close on Thursday and... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, November 3, 2016 Outside of option expiration days, the NASDAQ's volume the past two days is the highest consecutive day volume level since the post-Brexit results in late June. And there are two further signs that suggest to me the selling hasn'... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, November 2, 2016 Traders waited nervously for the FOMC announcement at 2pm EST yesterday and given the recent S&P 500 breakdown beneath 2120 and the elevated volatility index ($VIX), they had reason to do so. I felt the market environment was such that we... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, November 1, 2016 A couple reminders before we get into the action. First, today's webinar will be very interesting given the breakdown on the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 yesterday. It's 30 minutes of charts, key technical levels and market... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 31, 2016 The S&P 500 only finished down 0.26 points on the day Monday, but it felt a lot worse, mostly because that benchmark index finished very close to its low of the day and only 6 points from MAJOR short- to... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 28, 2016 Happy Halloween! Earnings season is well underway and it's clear that certain areas of the market are gaining momentum as a result. Those that benefit from higher interest rates are doing particularly well - both fundamentally and technically. Look no further than... READ MORE
There are basic technical analysis 101 principles and perhaps none more significant than the premise of price support and price resistance. During an uptrend, think of support and resistance as you would traveling higher in an elevator in an office building. The ceiling (resistance) on the first level becomes the... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, October 27, 2016 All of our major indices were fractionally lower to end the historically bearish October 22nd-27th period. Treasury yields were on the rise as the 10 year treasury yield ($TNX) broke above 1.80% to continue its recent uptrend. Selling in treasuries sent... READ MORE
Small cap stocks tumbled today, losing 1.23% and far exceeding losses incurred on the other major indices. Since Monday's close, the Russell 2000 has dropped approximately 3% while the benchmark S&P 500 has retreated less than 1%. One hallmark of a bull market is the... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, October 26, 2016 The Dow Jones finished in positive territory yesterday while the S&P 500, NASDAQ and Russell 2000 all declined. It was a particularly rough day for the Russell 2000, which fell 0.93%. The bifurcation was also seen throughout our sectors as... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, October 25, 2016 If you own consumer discretionary (XLY, -1.17%) stocks, you probably weren't too happy with your performance on Tuesday. 22 of 23 industry groups within the discretionary sector fell with only travel & tourism ($DJUSTT) escaping the bears' wrath. Media... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 24, 2016 Technology (XLK, +0.97%) led the U.S. stock market advance on Monday as mobile telecommunications ($DJUSWC) and software ($DJUSSW) were the primary reasons for the bulls' assault to open what normally is a very bearish week historically. Technically, however, price action... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 21, 2016 Consumer stocks were back in charge on Friday as discretionary (XLY, +0.80%) and staples (XLP, +0.54%) were the best and second best performing sectors. Restaurants & bars ($DJUSRU) were among discretionary leaders and just in time too. The DJUSRU had fallen... READ MORE
There are fundamental, technical and historical factors that drive U.S. equity prices. Earnings and interest rates have very clear fundamental impacts. The Fed has done everything in their power to keep interest rates at historically low levels in an attempt to promote growth. We could debate back and forth... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, October 20, 2016 Industrials (XLI, -0.54%) and technology (XLK, -0.46%) were the two weakest sectors on Thursday and this bull-bear battle continues for yet another day with apparently no end in sight. The only sector to finish in positive territory was healthcare (XLV,... READ MORE
Wednesday, after the closing bell, American Express (AXP) posted quarterly results that blew away consensus estimates for EPS and also managed to top revenue estimates. Furthermore, AXP raised its guidance on a forward-looking basis and shareholders are being rewarded today with a gap higher on massive volume. AXP is... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, October 20, 2016 Energy (XLE, +1.42%) was clearly in charge throughout Wednesday's session as crude oil prices ($WTIC) neared a major breakout at $52 per barrel. This would represent a breakout of a bottoming head & shoulders formation that projects a future price... READ MORE
Market Recap for October 18, 2016 Healthcare (XLV, +1.20%) performed extremely well on Tuesday, despite being the worst performing sector over the past month. There may have been some bottom fishing in the group as United Health (UNH) surged nearly 7% to lead the health providers group ($DJUSHP) to... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 17, 2016 The benchmark S&P 500 flirted with key short-term price support at 2120 once again, this time finishing at 2126 as consumer discretionary (XLY, -0.82%) was the weakest sector and also approached key price support. Consumer discretionary is an important... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 14, 2016 The U.S. stock market ended last week in bifurcated fashion with the NASDAQ and S&P 500 barely finishing in positive territory, while the Russell 2000 lost 0.27%. The Dow Jones was the most bullish index, gaining 0.22% to... READ MORE
About seven weeks ago, Bottomline Technologies (EPAY) produced excellent quarterly earnings results when its top line edged Wall Street consensus estimates and its bottom line crushed them. Market participants were expecting 9 cents per share and management delivered a huge beat - to the tune of 18 cents. That doubling of... READ MORE
We've entered a very strong historical part of the year for our major indices and most sectors and industry groups. Today, I want to focus on one of the best of the best, the Dow Jones U.S. Steel Index ($DJUSST). Average DJUSST monthly gains over the past... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, October 13, 2016 It got a little scary during Thursday's morning session as key support was lost on an intraday basis. Fortunately for the bulls, it wasn't lost for very long as U.S. equities rallied and printed hammers across the board.... READ MORE
My favorite indicator, other than the combination of price and volume, is definitely the MACD. I've studied it for years and I use it as a very important momentum indicator in my trading strategy. It's mostly a lagging indicator as it uses prior closing prices to... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, October 12, 2016 Considering the selling that began early Monday and continued all day Tuesday, Wednesday provided some relief to the bulls. The U.S. market did finish in bifurcated fashion with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 gaining fractionally while both the NASDAQ... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, October 11, 2016 There was a lot of carnage on Tuesday for sure. Every sector declined, led by a very weak healthcare sector (XLV, -2.51%). Biotechs ($DJUSBT) were primarily responsible for the sector's underperformance as this aggressive part of healthcare tumbled 3.27%... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 10, 2016 Crude oil ($WTIC) rose more than 3% on Monday and energy (XLE, +1.57%) was easily the best performing sector as a result. Utilities (XLU, +0.83%) saw surprising strength as did REITs. The strength for the XLU and REITs, however, is not... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, October 7, 2016 It was another down day on Friday for Wall Street, but there were no technical breakdowns to suggest we'd see follow through this week. Instead, we saw the materials sector (XLB, -1.86%) endure a painful session after two decent days... READ MORE
There is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to stock trading. However, using technical analysis as a predictive tool to manage your risk is the key to success in my opinion. Let's take EnCana Corp (ECA) as an example. ECA lost more than 15% over... READ MORE