Market Recap for Monday, February 8, 2016 While the U.S. market continued its downward spiral, Tokyo's Nikkei Average ($NIKK) fell more than 5% overnight, losing critical price and trendline support. Check it out: This chart was shown last week with the key price and trendline support reflected.... READ MORE
Special Note: If you missed our joint webinar on Friday, Greg Schnell and I will be back at it and hosting another joint one hour webinar today. We had a huge crowd on Friday and the two of us providing our own distinct views generated much interest. The webinar is... READ MORE
The Dow Jones U.S. Recreational Services Index ($DJUSRQ) fell more than 11% last week as traders completely ignored the consumer discretionary space (XLY). The only industry group within consumer discretionary that performed worse was Business Training & Employment Agencies ($DJUSBE), which fell a staggering 28% on Friday after LinkedIn... READ MORE
There are no guarantees to this question, but we do have history and past technical indications to provide us a few guidelines. Trading strategies applied during a bull market simply won't work during a bear market. They may work on a few select industry groups and stocks, but... READ MORE
Special Note: I have joined Greg Schnell, "The Canadian Technician", in Phoenix, AZ for a few days and Greg will be hosting my Trading Places LIVE webinar both today and Monday. Greg will offer up his latest thoughts on commodities, which have been on fire, and we'... READ MORE
First, it's not helping that the consumer discretionary sector is down more than 10% over the past three months. This sector weakness has manifested itself in a very weak three month performance in Walt Disney (DIS) shares, which have fallen more than 15%. Currently, DIS trades near a... READ MORE
There's been a last minute scheduling change and I'll be joining Greg Schnell for his weekly webinar "Commodities Countdown" at 5pm EST today. If you'd like to join our joint webinar, you can REGISTER HERE! It's FREE! Enjoy the show... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, February 3, 2016 This morning's article will be brief as I'll be traveling today. Energy (XLE) and materials (XLB) rose 3.56% and 3.36%, respectively, to lead a rally from key price support on Wednesday. A more than 1.5% drop... READ MORE
Note: I am returning at noon EST today for my "Trading Places LIVE" webinar. I'll be discussing several timely topics including the January Effect and the key technical failures that took place on Tuesday across many of our major sectors and industry groups. The webinar is... READ MORE
Market Recap for February 1, 2016 Yesterday I posted a chart showing that both energy (XLE) and crude oil ($WTIC) were approaching key resistance and likely to retreat. Right on cue, the XLE was the worst performing sector yesterday, falling 1.67% despite a bifurcated market where our major indices... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 29, 2016 On the surface, it was a super day. All nine sectors finished at least 1% higher with technology jumping more than 3% to lead the action. 21 of 23 industry groups within consumer discretionary (XLY) rose. And every industry group in the other... READ MORE
The Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index ($DJUSAR) made a very significant breakout late in 2014 and after its peak in January 2015, the group has been doing everything possible to hold onto price support ever since. Despite a revenue and earnings miss by Delta Airlines (DAL) on Tuesday, January... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 29, 2016 Facebook (FB) posted very strong quarterly earnings results after the closing bell on Wednesday and that propelled a huge rally in internet stocks ($DJUSNS). The timing couldn't have been better as the DJUSNS was testing its 50 week SMA in a... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 27, 2016 The volatility index ($VIX) was slowly working its way back to key support near 20 just before Wednesday's latest FOMC announcement, but that provided the fear mongers exactly what they were looking for as the VIX surged in the afternoon to... READ MORE
I'll be very brief this morning as I'm traveling. I should be back tomorrow morning with my regular blog article. Futures are looking a bit lower this morning as traders prepare for the FOMC announcement later this afternoon. Keep an eye on the reaction in the... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, January 26, 2016 The afternoon action on Monday is so typical of a stock market environment where the Volatility Index ($VIX) is in the 20s or 30s. We seemed to be in a fairly narrow trading range from 1890 to 1910 on the S&P... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 22, 2016 We are seeing an energy-driven rally for sure. On Friday alone, the XLE (ETF that tracks the energy sector) surged 4.42% and that came on the heels of a 3.11% advance on Thursday. While these gains are nice to see... READ MORE
Consumer finance ($DJUSSF) recently broke below key price support at 170 and did so on heavy confirming volume. To make matters worse a key component - American Express (AXP) - disappointed Wall Street after Thursday's close with its quarterly earnings report. Bottom line results beat consensus estimates, but revenue came... READ MORE
Much of the bull market was led higher by technology, particularly the Dow Jones U.S. Internet Index. So after the 2016 head & shoulders and long-term price breakdown, where might the current rally stall? The 1015-1025 range has proven in the past to be quite significant. Therefore,... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, January 22, 2016 We saw some hesitation from small cap stocks ($RUT) to continue their relative surge from Wednesday, but other key aggressive areas of the market took over to provide hope of a continuing rally. First and foremost, however, the stock market gained relief from... READ MORE
Banks ($DJUSBK) cannot catch a bid. Despite the market's attempt at a rally (finally!), no one appears to be intrigued by bank prospects. We saw an afternoon rally on Wednesday and it's being followed up with a decent rally today on the heels of European Central... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 20, 2016 The U.S. stock market finally had a day where traders decided enough was enough and they scurried into aggressive parts of the market. Even the 228 point gain on the Dow Jones Thursday, January 14th wasn't as impressive under the... READ MORE
But will it last? I'll be back in the morning with my normal blog article, but wanted to point out that major reversals are taking place this afternoon in terms of rotation. The 10 year treasury yield ($TNX) has reversed in a key support zone from 1.90%... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 19, 2016 Coming off the long holiday weekend, U.S. futures were poised to try to reverse the ugly behavior of equities thus far in 2016. And they did - for roughly 60 seconds. In just another awful performance for equities, the Russell 2000 once again... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 15, 2016 After last Friday's rout to sustain the recent hemorrhaging of the U.S. stock market, one positive developed. The August low close of 1867.61 held. Friday's intraday low was 1857.83 so the bears had an opportunity to... READ MORE
It would seem logical that falling crude oil prices ($WTIC) would help propel airlines ($DJUSAR) higher and rising crude oil prices would have the opposite effect. In the second half of 2014 and into early 2015, that was the case. The same scenario developed over the summer of 2015. More... READ MORE
Technical analysis doesn't try to answer why questions. Fundamentalists are constantly bewildered by price action, especially when it seems to contradict fundamental news. Technicians simply don't care. The stock market looks ahead and therefore price action precedes news. That's why it's important... READ MORE
Note: Two quick reminders. First, if you haven't already, please subscribe to my blog. By doing so, my blog articles will be sent directly to your email upon publishing. You'll receive my article the moment it's published. It's easy and it'... READ MORE
It's no secret that crude oil prices ($WTIC) have been tumbling over the past 18 months, but that has kept tremendous pressure on energy-related shares and the energy ETF (XLE). Crude oil managed to close back above $31 per barrel with the Dow Jones U.S. Pipelines... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 13, 2016 What a mess. Money has been rotating toward defense for months and now we know why. Because market participants want nothing to do with risk right now. Last year, the sectors attracting sellers were energy (XLV) and materials (XLB). Those two groups held... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 13, 2016 There were a few positives regarding the rally on Tuesday. First, all of our major indices finished in the green for the first time in 2016. Whew! The better news is that aggressive areas of the market benefited most and that should provide... READ MORE
Market Recap for January 11, 2016 Monday was a bifurcated market in which we saw both the Dow Jones and S&P 500 rise for the session while the underperforming NASDAQ extended its losing streak to start the year. Both the NASDAQ and Russell 2000 have fallen more than... READ MORE
Market Recap for January 8, 2016 Honestly, most traders are probably just happy last week finally came to an end. While Monday through Wednesday consisted mostly of gaps with sideways trading intraday, we saw much more of a concerted selling effort the latter part of the week with bouts of... READ MORE
Over the past year, the Dow Jones U.S. Internet Index ($DJUSNS) has risen 23% while the only industry group to outperform the DJUSNS has been the Dow Jones U.S. Toys Index ($DJUSTY), which has risen 31%. Last week's selling to open 2016 was strong enough to... READ MORE
Market Recap for January 7, 2016 Once again the best performing sectors were the three defensive groups - utilities (XLU), consumer staples (XLP) and healthcare (XLV). All of our aggressive sectors tumbled anywhere from 2%-3% with technology leading the way. A number of industry groups within technology are either breaking... READ MORE
If you've ever used the Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) or Accumulation/Distribution (AD) as indicators to help gauge buying and selling pressure, just make a note that gaps to both the upside and downside are ignored in their calculations. Let's take the NASDAQ Composite as an... READ MORE
Market Recap for January 6, 2016 If the stock market could avoid the opening bell catastrophes, the action in 2016 wouldn't be bad at all. Thus far this year, the NASDAQ has had net gap downs of 173 points on a cumulative basis. Trading from 9:30am EST... READ MORE
Market Recap for Tuesday, January 5, 2016 Let's start with the good news. After a big selloff on Monday morning, the U.S. stock market rallied into the close to print reversing candles across most of our major indices, sectors and industry groups. That was followed up with... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, January 4, 2016 China's Shanghai Composite ($SSEC) sent global markets lower on Monday after the SSEC shred nearly 7% of its value. Asian markets tumbled and those losses triggered sizable gaps lower in Europe and here in the U.S. A late rally in... READ MORE
Market Recap for Thursday, December 31, 2015 Happy New Year! The action on Thursday to close out the year symbolized trading throughout all of 2015. We were down early, rallied to try to move into positive territory and then fell again in the second half of the session to finish... READ MORE