When it rains, it pours. Stocks were hovering in positive territory on Tuesday afternoon, but got hit with selling pressure in the final hour. Blame is on the economic outlook from Bernanke. After edging above 130 just after 3PM, the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) plunged and closed below... READ MORE
With the decline over the last several weeks, the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) broke below the Ichimoku Cloud for the third time since March. The ETF recovered quickly after the first two breaks. Also notice that the cloud is poised to turn red, which happens when the red line is... READ MORE
The April lows are starting to break. The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM), S&P MidCap 400 SPDR (MDY) and S&P 500 ETF (SPY) broke their April lows. The Dow Industrials SPDR (DIA) and the Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQ) remain just above their April lows. Weakness in the... READ MORE
ATMI Firms at Key Retracement. CHRW Breaks Support. SBUX Forms Extended Triangle. Plus BIDU, PNRA, PMCS This commentary and charts-of-interest are designed to stimulate thinking. This analysis is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or sell short any security (stock ETF or otherwise). We all need to think for... READ MORE
FINANCE SECTOR LEADS MARKET LOWER... Link for todays video. The finance sector led the market lower on Monday with another sharp decline. Chart 1 shows the Finance SPDR (XLF) moving below 15 to enter a potential support zone. Broken resistance and the 62% retracement mark potential support in the 14.... READ MORE
Stocks remain in corrective mode, but the bigger trends are still up. With a move below 131 on Friday, the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) has retraced around 62% of the March-May advance. Keep in mind that this advance forged a 52-week high, which affirms the larger uptrend. Support... READ MORE
IMPROVEMENTS TO PREDEFINED SCAN RESULTS - We've been hard at work improving our predefined scan results page so that you can quickly see which scans have had the biggest improvements over the course of the past day. We now have red and green bars that show you the... READ MORE
Hello Fellow ChartWatchers! Recently we introduced a new cycle analysis tool in our ChartNotes annotation tool - the Cycle "Sine Wave" tool. This tool helps you look at various period cycles on your charts. It can be used on any chart in a wide variety of ways but... READ MORE
Thurday's message showed the S&P 500 threatening two important support lines. Unfortunately, both have been broken. Chart 1 shows the SPX closing below its 100-day average (green line) for the first time since last August. The weekly bars in Chart 2 show the SPX ending well... READ MORE
There are many sentiment indicators that can be followed but the two I most closely follow are the Volatility Index (VIX) and the Equity Only Put Call Ratio (EOPCR). There are sentiment gauges that tell you how investment letter newswriters "feel" about the market. Personally, I'd... READ MORE
In the past 10-months, the commodity markets have rallied rather substantially on the back of the QE-2 campaign. But, we would be remiss if we didn't point out that Natural Gas did not participate, with prices below the August levels extant when Fed Chairman Bernanke announced that QE-2... READ MORE
For over three months the market has been chopping around and making very little progress. In the process internals have been weakening, a fact that is reflected in the signal table below. In our Decision Point Alert Daily Report we track mechanical timing signals on 27 market and sector indexes.... READ MORE
S&P 500 VIOLATED MAJOR UP TRENDLINE... Thurday's message showed the S&P 500 threatening two important support lines. Unfortunately, both have been broken. Chart 1 shows the SPX closing below its 100-day average (green line) for the first time since last August. The weekly bars... READ MORE
With economic indicators and employment statistics coming up short this week, retail stocks came under considerable selling pressure. Led by weakness in Wal-Mart and Home Depot, the **Retail HOLDRS (RTH)** is down some 7% the last few weeks. Chart 7 shows RTH breaking the trendline extending up from early September.... READ MORE
Auto Nation (AN) is tracing out a clear Head-and-Shoulders pattern, but remains short of a confirming support break. The most recent signal was a triangle breakout last week. AN has since moved back into triangle support. A move below 32.5 would break support and argue for a trend reversal.... READ MORE
SHORT-TERM DOWNTRENDS WITHIN LONG-TERM UPTRENDS ... Link for todays video. News this week was certainly not positive. The economic reports showed that the economy was slowing and the employment reports showed sluggish job growth. The week ended with non-farm payrolls increasing by 54,000 jobs in May, which was well below... READ MORE
When does a short-term decline extend far enough to have medium-term or long-term consequences? That is the big question right now. As far as I can tell, the May decline has yet to do enough technical damage to change the medium-term outlook (2-6 months). As the indicator summary shows, the... READ MORE
And now for the employment report... There is not much to do but wait for the market's reaction to the jobs number. On the daily chart, SPY is trading within a falling channel. The last reaction high formed with a hanging man and long black candlestick. This is... READ MORE
BONDS AND STOCKS SEND CONFLICTING MESSAGES... One of the problems market watchers have been grappling with over the past couple of months is the conflicting messages being sent by bonds and stocks. Here's why. Chart 1 compares the S&P 500 (price bars) to the 10-Year T-Note... READ MORE
Despite yesterday's sharp decline, a number of stocks bucked the selling pressure by gaining on the day or forming bullish candlestick patterns. Cornerstone OnDemand ($CSOD), which debuted on March 17th, formed a bullish engulfing and gained on Wednesday. Follow through above resistance would confirm this pattern. Click this... READ MORE
CVX Forms Bearish Wedge. ILMN Bucks the Selling Pressure. NVSL Forms Shooting Star. Plus ADSK, INTU, STX, XOM *********************************************** This commentary and charts-of-interest are designed to stimulate thinking. This analysis is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or sell short any security (stock ETF or otherwise). We all need to... READ MORE
The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) surged above the wedge trendline with a four day advance and then gave it all back in one day. Wednesday's decline was broad-based with the most negative breadth since March. This decline signals the start of an extended decline or a... READ MORE
There are over 200 stocks across the various exchanges on Wednesday's bearish engulfing scan. From the NYSE, FedEx (FDX) formed a bearish engulfing on the first day of the month in both May and June. Wednesday's big bearish engulfing occurred on expanding volume. Click this image... READ MORE
TREASURIES SURGE ON WEAK ECONOMIC NUMBERS... Link for todays video. US Treasury Bonds continued their relentless rise after two economic releases came up short. First, ADP Employer Services reported that private sector job growth for May increased the smallest amount since September. Second, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) reported... READ MORE
The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) made it four in a row with a surge and trendline breakout on Tuesday. SPY opened strong, dipped intraday and surged at the close. A hanging man candlestick formed with a small body and long lower shadow. These are potentially bearish candlestick reversal... READ MORE
STRONG EURO BOOSTS EUROPEAN STOCKS ... News of more aid for Greece pushed the Euro higher today and European stocks along with it. Chart 1 shows the Euro climbing to a three-week high today and finishing back above its 50-day average. European stocks surged along with it. Chart 2 shows Europe... READ MORE
Google ($GOOG) has been trending lower since mid January, but support may be at hand in the 515 area. Broken resistance and the 62% retracement combine to mark support here. Also notice that RSI has a bullish divergence working the last few weeks. Click this image for a live chart... READ MORE
RALLY IN EUROPE AND EURO BOOSTS GLOBAL STOCKS AND COMMODITIES... News of more aid to Greece is giving a big boost to European stocks and the Euro. The first three charts show German, French, and British stock indexes jumping sharply this morning. All three are climbing back above their 50-day... READ MORE
GOOG Hits Retracement Support. JBLU Forms Higher Low. NWSA Challenges Resistance with Ascending Triangle. Plus BBT, EXPD, LINTA, UAL. *********************************************** This commentary and charts-of-interest are designed to stimulate thinking. This analysis is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or sell short any security (stock ETF or otherwise). We all need... READ MORE
With a three day bounce last week, the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) is poised to challenge the upper trendline of the falling flag/wedge. The ETF opened strong on Friday and then stalled the rest of the day to form a doji type candlestick denoting indecision. A little... READ MORE
A basic tenet of technical analysis is that broken resistance turns into support. Biadu broke two resistance levels and these combine to form a support zone. With the stock firming the last two week, watch for a bounce above the mid May high to reverse the May slide. Click this... READ MORE
INDUSTRIALS SPDR AND S&P MIDCAP SPDR BOUNCE OFF APRIL LOWS... Link for todays video. Basic trend analysis stipulates that an uptrend consists of rising peaks and rising troughs. The trick, as always, is picking the right peaks and trough upon which to base the trend. The most recent... READ MORE
There are areas of weakness in the stock market, but the bulk of the evidence remains bullish. The Nasdaq AD Line broke below its April low, but the NYSE AD Line remains in a clear uptrend. SPY momentum was downgraded to bearish as MACD(5,35,5) moved into negative... READ MORE
SPY followed through on the doji and piercing pattern with another modest gain on Thursday. The ETF closed up a mere .46%, but the white candlestick was once again rather long as SPY opened weak and closed fairly strong. So far, this looks like an oversold bounce within a downtrend... READ MORE
With a gap down, three day stall and gap up, Microsoft (MSFT) forged a bullish island reversal. Technically, the high of the 3-day consolidation is 24.31 and today's low is 24.32. The gap zone is one cent. Nevertheless, the essence of a island reversal is there.... READ MORE
COMMODITIES BOUNCE AS DOLLAR PULLS BACK ... I wrote on Tuesday that commodities (and stocks related to them) had fallen back to important support levels and were starting to stabilize. I also suggested that they appeared to present good value at current levels. As you know, the trend of commodity assets... READ MORE
There is no real change on the charts as SPY continues to firm after Monday's gap down. The ETF formed a doji on Monday, which indicates indecision. After a weak open on Wednesday, SPY recovered and closed above 132 to form a white candlestick that closed above the... READ MORE
AAPL Hits Support Zone. APOL Breaks Support. SCMR Forms Large Bullish Engulfing. Plus APA,APC,CCI,DNR,EXP,IPG,PLCE,SCMR. *********************************************** This commentary and charts-of-interest are designed to stimulate thinking. This analysis is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold or sell short any security (stock ETF or otherwise). We... READ MORE
Renko charts filter out the noise by requiring minimum price moves before the plot changes. This Renko chart shows the Dow Industrials SPDR (DIA) based on closing prices with 50 cents as the minimum move. A clear decline has taken shape in May with resistance at 125. Click this image... READ MORE
SMALL-CAPS LEAD OVERSOLD BOUNCE FOR STOCKS... Link for todays video. Stocks moved higher on Wednesday, but the bounce was rather uneven and uninspiring. Small-caps led the way higher as the Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) gained over 1%. Large-caps lagged as the S&P 500 gained around a third of... READ MORE