I generally do not review stocks in the DecisionPoint blog, but the Consumer Discretionary sector took a hit today, most notably Kohls Department Stores (KSS) and Ralph Lauren Polo brand (RL). These two stocks had the misfortune to miss their revenues by a great deal today. However, even had this... 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
Wrong Sectors Leading // Key Industry Groups Lagging // Is the FORCE Bullish or Bearish? // Testing Wedge Support (SPY, QQQ, IWM) // Overview of the Nine Sector SPDRs // Oversold Bounces for Housing and Semis // Showing Patience with the Gold Miners ETF (and gold) //// Wrong Sectors Leading The stock market is in the midst... 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
DOLLAR PLUNGES ... The dollar is having its worst day in months. Chart 1 shows the Power Shares Dollar Index (UUP) tumbling to the lowest level in three months. That's due partially to the recent drop in U.S. rates, falling stock prices, and weak economic news which have... READ MORE
The US Dollar ETF (UUP) is getting whacked on Wednesday and breaking its January lows. The trading day is not over yet, but the Dollar is on pace for its biggest daily decline since early December. On the price chart below, notice how UUP fell sharply in early December and... READ MORE
I’ve discussed noise a few times in the past but it needs to be brought up again. Just in the course of a normal week, we are bombarded with information from sources such as the FED, television analysts, brokerage firm analysts, economists’ projections, newspapers, junk mail, neighbors, war reporters,... 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
If you haven't reviewed the DecisionPoint Chart Gallery Scoreboards, you may want to. Yesterday, the short-term Price Momentum Oscillator (PMO) signals on all four Scoreboards for OEX, SPX, INDU and NDX switched to BUY signals. These signals trigger on the daily chart when the PMO crosses above its... READ MORE
* Global rates are in freefall * Interest-sensitive sectors will continue to improve their relative action * Two sectors that are likely to underperform The recent move by the Bank of Japan (BOJ) confirmed what rates around the world have already been doing, i.e. moving lower. In Japan’s case, some rates... READ MORE
Long-term Trend Trumps // Short-term Wedges Taking Shape // Key Ratio Charts Still Trending Lower // Smattering of New Highs // New Highs Concentrated in Three Groups // Relative and Absolute Uptrends // Webinar Highlights //// Long-term Trend Trumps Stocks firmed in mid January as the major index ETFs formed big hammers and we even saw some... READ MORE
Market Recap for February 1, 2016 Yesterday I posted a chart showing that both energy (XLE) and crude oil ($WTIC) were approaching key resistance and likely to retreat. Right on cue, the XLE was the worst performing sector yesterday, falling 1.67% despite a bifurcated market where our major indices... READ MORE
It was a rough January for stocks, but CBS held up quite well and shows a bullish looking chart. On the price chart, CBS sports a classic surge-correct-breakout sequence. First, the stock advanced over 20% with a move from ~39 to ~52. Second, the stock corrected by retracing around 62%... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 29, 2016 On the surface, it was a super day. All nine sectors finished at least 1% higher with technology jumping more than 3% to lead the action. 21 of 23 industry groups within consumer discretionary (XLY) rose. And every industry group in the other... READ MORE
Really? Something interesting about mutual funds? Well, I had to put some kind of hook in the title, because the subject matter doesn't normally induce a rapid pulse rate, but there are some interesting things to be known. For example, total assets in bond funds is showing a... READ MORE
The Dow Jones U.S. Airlines Index ($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
10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD FALLS TO NINE-MONTH LOW... A seemingly strange thing happened on Friday. The Bank of Japan surprised everyone by adopting a negative interest rate for the first time by pushing its short-term rate below zero. Not surprisingly, the Japanese yen plunged 2% and Japanese stocks jumped 2.8%... READ MORE
PLUNGE IN YEN... The Bank of Japan (BOJ) announced this morning a move to negative interest rates for the first time in its history. That pushed Japanese yields sharply lower and caused the yen to plunge. Chart 1 shows the Japanese yen plunging -2% today, which is its biggest drop... READ MORE
Having traded the markets for over 25 years, I am still focused on ruthlessly driving mind-bending emotions from my investing efforts. With novice investors, the first and most significant speed bump seems to be simply acknowledging the fact that investors themselves are the speed bump. We need to accept two... READ MORE
How does a Wyckoffian take a very large horizontal PnF count? A large count that forms over many years? Let’s do a case study on an outsized formation and see if it yields useful PnF count objectives. A big thanks to one of my teaching partners at Golden Gate... READ MORE
Long-term Trends Versus Short-term Conditions // Analyzing the 2000 and 2007 Tops // Applying Recent History to Current Price Action // Three Positive Characteristics for Utilities // Yield Alternatives Shine // Bonds Gets Extended, but Still Bullish // First Target for Oil Bounce // Gold Hits Key Retracement Zone // Dollar Holds Breakout - Euro and Yen Fail... 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 ($DJUSNS). The timing couldn't have been better as the DJUSNS was testing its 50 week SMA in a... READ MORE
Big bounces all over the place, not just in equities. In this article I want to take a look at relative rotation at an asset class level, of course, using an RRG lens. The Relative Rotation Graph below shows the relative trends in play for several asset classes over the... READ MORE
During yesterday's webinar, I stirred up some renewed interest in the DecisionPoint Thrust/Trend Model with a reader request for the model analyzed on the Nasdaq 100. I explained that using a "thrust" component with the DP Trend Model will often times get you an early... READ MORE
BONDS AND UTILITIES ARE RISING TOGETHER... With the 10-Year Treasury yield slipping back below 2.00%, bond prices are rising. The daily bars in Chart 1 show the Barclays 7-10 Year iShares (IEF) nearing its January high. Rate-sensitive stocks like utilities usually rise right along with bonds. Chart 2 shows... READ MORE
Market Recap for Wednesday, January 27, 2016 The volatility index ($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
Small-caps and Large-techs Lead Lower // SPY Fails to Follow Through // QQQ Nears 52-week Low // Dragonfly Doji versus the Hammer // Between a Huge Rock and a Hard Place (FDN, SMH, IGV, SKYY, IGN, XBI, ITB, KRE) //// QQQ and IWM Lead Lower Last week's hammers remain on the weekly charts... READ MORE
STOCK INDEXES TURN DOWN ... Stocks are weakening after the Fed statement. Chart 1 shows the DJ Industrial SPDR (DIA) reversing down in late afternoon trading. It may now retest last week's low. Chart 2 shows the S&P 500 SPDRS (SPY) doing the same. Chart 3 shows... READ MORE
The selling pressure this year was broad enough to push all but one of the Bullish Percent Indexes below 50%, and most below 30%. Note that StockCharts tracks the Bullish Percent Index (BPI) for the ten sectors, several broad market indexes and the Gold Miners Index. The image below comes... READ MORE
DOLLAR DIRECTION MAY HOLD KEY TO CRUDE OIL ... Everyone is waiting to hear what the Fed has to say today. Markets appear to hoping for a more dovish statement. Currency traders are also paying very close attention. That's because Fed policy has a big impact on dollar direction.... READ MORE
Literally hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year on the analysis of individual securities by Wall Street brokerage firms and independent firms (Zacks, Hoovers, Value Line, etc). Most brokerage firms have a large staff of analysts, which make huge salaries, and are widely summoned to television shows each... 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
I received a comment on one of my blog articles from a long-time follower, John Latta. Here's what he asked: "Did you read Arthur's Monday blog? It would be very interesting if you would do an analysis of RSP, especially in view of the divergence... READ MORE
Several key short/intermediate indicators reverse from oversold conditions Gold ETF very close to violating its bear market trendline The intermediate Indicators are bottoming Internal market action in the last week is starting to confirm the possibility of an intermediate low that I laid out last week. That’s because... READ MORE
Hammers Still Hanging Around // The Weight of the Evidence is Clear // Correlations Rise in a Bear Market // Defensive Sector Performance in Prior Bear Market // Performance of Stock Alternatives in Prior Bear Market // Webinar Highlights //// Hammers Still Hanging Around There was no follow-through to last week's hammers as stocks... 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 ($VIX) is in the 20s or 30s. We seemed to be in a fairly narrow trading range from 1890 to 1910 on the S&P... READ MORE
Among other ways, chartists can measure the risk appetite in the stock market by comparing the performance of the Equal-weight S&P 500 ETF (RSP) with the S&P 500 SPDR (SPY). RSP represents the average stock in the S&P 500 and the performance of small... READ MORE
Market Recap for Friday, January 22, 2016 We are seeing an energy-driven rally for sure. On Friday alone, the XLE (ETF that tracks the energy sector) surged 4.42% and that came on the heels of a 3.11% advance on Thursday. While these gains are nice to see as... READ MORE
One of the best sentiment indicators we had for gold was the premium/discount for Central Gold Trust (GTU), a closed-end fund which owned only gold bullion. (Closed-end funds trade like stocks, and the pressures of bid/ask can cause them to trade at a premium or discount to net... READ MORE
Consumer finance ($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... READ MORE