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
Performance Discrepancies Abound in Key Industry Groups .... The Problem with Support Breaks in an Uptrend (SPY, QQQ) .... Pattern Trading versus Mean-Reversion Systems (IWM) .... Day of Divergence (Breadth) .... Industrials Versus Consumer Discretionary .... Bonds, Yields, Utilities and Gold .... //// .... Performance Discrepancies Abound in Key Industry Groups The stock market remains in a real... READ MORE
* Seasonals are bullish * Current condition of some short-term indicators * The bullish part of the year * Time to raise those beta glasses? The stock market has really been in a trading range for the last two years. At my bi-weekly webinar this week, I pointed out that several long-term indicators have... READ MORE
BOND YIELDS CONTINUE TO CLIMB... Chart 1 shows the 10-Year Treasury Yield climbing again today after finding support along its 200-day moving average. Rising yields are giving the usual lift to financial shares, banks and insurers in particular. Chart 2 shows the S&P Bank SPDR (KBE) trading at... READ MORE
Chubb trended lower from July to October, but a gap-laden reversal off a big support zone suggests that this decline may be reversing. More importantly, this decline looks like a correction with a bigger uptrend. Let's look at the evidence for a long-term uptrend. First, Chubb (CB) hit... 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 ($DJUSTT) escaping the bears' wrath. Media... READ MORE
Interestingly, Gold has put in a short-term bottom and has held onto it even through the Dollar's magnificent rally. This shows there is likely short-term internal strength and this current support could hold. There are still plenty of obstacles for Gold in the longer term as you'... READ MORE
POWERSHARES BASE METALS FUND JUMPS 2%... Base metal prices like iron ore and steel are seeing big gains in China. That strength is spilling over into aluminum, copper, nickel, and zinc. That's giving a big boost to global stocks tied to those commodities. Chart 1 shows the PowerShares... READ MORE
Webinar Video Link .... Art's Charts ChartList Link .... Weighing the Balance of Power for the Market Sectors .... XLY Surges off 200-day EMA .... XLI Could Tilt the Balance of Power .... Falling Wedges for Retail and Housing ETFs .... Software iShares Nears New High .... Staples, Utilities and REITs Tests their 200-day EMAs... READ MORE
Market Recap for Monday, October 24, 2016 Technology (XLK, +0.97%) led the U.S. stock market advance on Monday as mobile telecommunications ($DJUSWC) and software ($DJUSSW) were the primary reasons for the bulls' assault to open what normally is a very bearish week historically. Technically, however, price action... READ MORE
The Euro ETF (FXE) formed a large triangle after a sharp decline and this pattern could be just a big rest within a bigger downtrend. After falling some 25% in one year, FXE found support in March 2015 and moved sideways the last 20 months. This sideways pattern looks like... READ MORE
This is the second in a series with the first few paragraphs the same as the first one. I am not sure why there are so many vague and totally subjective analysis techniques that have become part of technical analysis. Probably because the main stream Wall Street and their marketing... READ MORE
Investors looking to time gold should pay close attention to the 10-yr Treasury yield because these two show a strong negative correlation over the last two years. This means they move in opposite directions. The chart below shows the Gold SPDR (GLD), the 10-yr T-Yield ($TNX) and the 13-week Correlation... 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
Nowhere is not Necessarily Bearish .... Consumer Discretionary Shows Relative Strength .... Five Key Risk Ratios Remain Bullish .... Breadth Indicators Soften During Correction .... Mean-reverting with Breadth Indicators .... SPY Holds Mean-Reversion Bounce .... QQQ Continues to Lead .... IWM Tests Big Support Zone .... //// .... Nowhere is not Necessarily Bearish The S&P 500 has gone... READ MORE
There is a negative divergence between prices and total assets in stock mutual funds. While prices have moved to all-time highs, the value of total assets in those mutual funds has actually fallen. How can this happen? Source: ICI.org SPY components are exclusively large-cap stocks, while total assets in... 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
The Wyckoff Method is a trend following and trend management system. It seeks to identify the pre-conditions to the emergence of a rising (or falling) trend, with the intention of participating in that trend for the duration of it. The Method is timeless and is often used for other means,... READ MORE
This ChartPack update is chock full of enhancements as a direct result of spending a week in Napa Valley with all the sensational commentators and luminaries at ChartCon 2016. We confess that we have unabashedly incorporated a lot of their wisdom into improving our ChartPack. We are sure you’ll... READ MORE
Quantifying the Reaction to Earnings .... Scan Code for Big Movers .... Low Volume and JETS .... Apple Dwarfs the Entire Airline Group .... Using PerfCharts to Compare Airlines Performance .... Using RRGs to Measure Relative Performance for Airlines .... Emerging Markets Continue to Outperform .... //// .... Quantifying the Reaction to Earnings I was trying to get an... 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, +0.... READ MORE
* Long-term perspective * What are gold shares saying? * Gold and the dollar * Conclusion The question of whether gold is in a primary bull market keeps coming up in the Q & A part of my bi-weekly Tuesday webinars. Given the recent drop in the price, this question is becoming increasingly relevant.... 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 up... 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 $52 per barrel. This would represent a breakout of a bottoming head & shoulders formation that projects a future price... READ MORE
QQQ Leads the Big 3 .... SPY Forms Small Wedge .... Finance and Tech Power IWM .... Changing to Vanguard Finance ETF .... Groups Going Off the Radar .... Still Watching Retail and Housing .... Steel Stocks Propel Metals & Mining SPDR .... Airline ETF Gets Two Breakouts .... //// .... QQQ Leads the Big 3 QQQ continues to lead... READ MORE
CRUDE OIL HITS FOUR-MONTH HIGH... The price of oil continues to rise. Chart 1 shows the United Stated Oil Fund (USO) climbing nearly 3% to reach the highest level in nearly four months. That's giving a big boost to energy shares which are leading the rest of the... READ MORE
The FirstTrust Natural Gas ETF (FCG) has been one of the top performing ETFs this year with a year-to-date gain of around 18%. As the chart below shows, the overall trend is clearly up and the ETF is forming a small bullish continuation pattern. First, a rising channel defines the... READ MORE
Market Recap for October 18, 2016 Healthcare (XLV, +1.20%) performed extremely well on Tuesday, despite being the worst performing sector over the past month. There may have been some bottom fishing in the group as United Health (UNH) surged nearly 7% to lead the health providers group ($DJUSHP) to... READ MORE
20+YEAR TREASURY BOND ISHARES TEST 200-DAY AVERAGE... Before getting to rate-sensitive stocks ETFs that are testing their 200-day averages, it's necessary to first look at what Treasury ETFs are doing. That's because they've all been falling together. Chart 1 shows the 20-Year Treasury... READ MORE
Three Sector Breaks Remain in Play .... The Three Big Laggards - XLV XLP XLU .... Tech, Finance and Energy Continue to Lead .... RRG Reflects Current Sector Rotations .... NatGas Continues to Lead Oil .... Webinar Video .... //// .... Click here for the webinar video. The nine sector SPDRs can be divided into three groups right... 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 sector... READ MORE
Quick scan The Relative Rotation Graph above shows the rotation of the various members of the S&P Energy sector against XLE as a benchmark. As usual, there are some good and some not so good names found on the plot. Inside the weakening quadrant, NFX and SWN are... READ MORE
The consumer discretionary sector is one of the weakest performing sectors over the last six months, but the overall chart looks constructive and I am watching the October highs for a breakout. Note that I am analyzing the Equal-weight Consumer Discretionary ETF (RCD) because it tells us how the "... READ MORE
When in early-September SPY took out its August low, I thought that the fall correction was finally getting underway. But no. Instead, a slightly lower level of support was established, and price continued sideways. That support was tested successfully on Thursday, but Friday's attempt to extend the rally... READ MORE
Support and resistance are mainstays in technical analysis; sadly, misused and abused by many. The purpose of this article is to hopefully explain why they work when used properly. I have to admit that when I first got interested in technical analysis and charting, I drew trendlines all over the... 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
SPY Holds Triangle Break .... Testing the Mean-Reversion Strategy with IWM and QQQ .... IWM Gaps towards Big Support Zone .... QQQ Remains with Active RSI Signal .... Do Stops Matter? .... Consumer Discretionary Sector Teeters .... Sector Trend and Breadth Table .... //// .... SPY Holds Triangle Break I covered the major stock indexes and broad market breadth... READ MORE
A morning bounce in stocks faded by the end of the day. Chart 1 shows the S&P 500 ending the day at its low. That keeps stocks in a short-term downside correction and well below a falling 50-day average (blue arrow). It also leaves open the possibility that... 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... READ MORE