Two weeks ago I stated that a correction had begun, and that the initial selling had resulted in an initiation climax - a technical condition that indicated that the initial down pressure was probably near exhaustion, but that signaled the beginning of a new down trend. My expectation was that there... READ MORE
The bull market in commodity has extended beyond what many had believed it would in such a short period of time; be it crude oil prices or gold prices or even wheat prices - the bull market has surprised in its violence. The question before all traders and investors alike is... READ MORE
Earlier today I showed the Bank Index on the verge of hitting a new low for the year. By day's end, it had fallen to the lowest level in two years (Chart 1). This puts the BKX on track to challenge its 2005 low. In case you'... READ MORE
Hello Fellow ChartWatchers! I'm pretty busy this weekend and just have time to mention the following things: * We've just released John Murphy's entire 2006 collection of articles in CD-ROM format. The CD includes a new video intro from John as well as a... READ MORE
BEAR MARKET IN BANKS ... Earlier today I showed the Bank Index on the verge of hitting a new low for the year. By day's end, it had fallen to the lowest level in two years (Chart 1). The puts the BKX on track to challenge its 2005 low.... READ MORE
CITIGROUP PLUNGES 7% ... It's the same story over and over again. More bad news in financial stocks pulls the rest of the market lower. The day's biggest financial casualty is Citigroup which plunged more than 7% on huge volume. Chart 1 shows the nation's... READ MORE
STOCKS SURGE AFTER FED ANNOUNCEMENT... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor As is usually the case on Fed day, the stock market put in a volatile performance on Wednesday. The major indices were modestly higher heading into the Fed&... READ MORE
CONSUMER STAPLES FOLLOW ENERGY... Chart 1 is an idealized diagram of how various market sectors do at various stages in the business cyle. The diagram is based on the work of Sam Stovall who has done extensive work in this area. There are two versions of this diagram. Let'... READ MORE
FINANCIALS ARE DAY'S STRONGEST GROUP ... My last words on Thursday evening were that the market wouldn't rally much without a bounce in the financials. It got that bounce today and rallied accordingly. For a change, the financials were the day's strongest sector (all of... READ MORE
MICROSOFT RELATIVE STRENGTH LINE TURNS UP... Last night I showed Microsoft breaking out to a six-year high. After a bullish report, the stock is soaring another 10% today. One of our readers reacted to last night's chart with the observation that Microsoft's upside breakout hardly... READ MORE
CONSUMER STAPLES SHIFT FROM LAGGARDS TO LEADERS ... One market sector that keeps showing up on the 2007 leadership list is consumer staples. The Consumer Staples SPDR (XLP) has outperformed the S&P over the last week, the last month, and since the start of 2007. That's a... READ MORE
STOCKS RECOVER AFTER EARLY LOSSES... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor After starting the day weak and remaining weak into the afternoon, stocks surged in the final two hours and cut most of their losses by the close. The... READ MORE
S&P 500 SPDRS BOUNCE OFF 149 SUPPORT... Last Friday I wrote that the first important line of defense for the S&P 500 SPDRs was 149. I got that number from the early August peak and the 50-day moving average. Chart 1 shows that Monday'... READ MORE
The panic selloff and subsequent recovery in August was nearly a mirror image of what we've seen in October. First, let's start with August. If you recall, we discussed how long-term market bottoms are marked by extreme bearish sentiment. The sentiment we saw in August... READ MORE
The Consumer Discretionary SPDR (XLY) and Finance SPDR (XLF) broke down this week to signal a continuation of downtrends that began in July. In other words, the Aug-Oct rally was just a countertrend advance within a larger downtrend. XLF and XLF moved into bear mode when double tops were... READ MORE
Two weeks ago I wrote an article that stated that it was a good time for a pullback. As it turns out the pullback started four trading days later, and it appears now that a full blown correction is in progress. It will probably take at least two or three... READ MORE
Over the past 18-months, the technology sector has outperformed the S&P 500 by a rather handy amount; however, we believe this trend towards technology out-performance is very close to ending. This has major implications in terms of "rotation" to be undertaken by mutual and... READ MORE
The Dow Industrials were hit especially hard on Friday. A lot of that was due to big tumbles in two of its cyclical stocks - Caterpillar and 3M. Chart 3 shows Caterpillar falling 6% (on higher volume) to undercut its 50-day average. CAT appears headed for a retest of its... READ MORE
One thousand words: All the sectors are moving lower this month led by the Financials. Click on the chart to explore more.... READ MORE
MORE ON THE MCCLELLAN INDICATORS ... On Tuesday I showed the McClellan Oscillator (MOC) falling below the zero line for the first time in two months which triggered a short-term sell signal. I explained that the MOC is derived by comparing two exponential moving averages (19 and 39 days) of... READ MORE
EURO HITS NEW RECORD AGAINST THE DOLLAR ... With all the recent bad news on housing, and increased hopes for another rate cut by the Fed, the U.S. Dollar continues to drop like a stone. The U.S. Dollar Index recently hit a new record low. In today's... READ MORE
BIG TECHS LEAD THE WAY... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor After positive news from Intel (INTC) and Yahoo! (YHOO), stocks started the day with a bang and surged higher. However, broad strength gave way to choppy trading and... READ MORE
CITIGROUP AND KEYCORP LEAD BANKS LOWER ... Once again, financial stocks are leading the rest of the market lower. Bank stocks were hit especially hard today. Two of the biggest casualties were Citigroup and Keycorp. Chart 1 shows Citigroup falling more than 2% and threatening its summer low. Keycorp fell more... READ MORE
IT'S NOT JUST THE DOLLAR ... One of the main driving forces behind the recent rally in gold (and other commodities) has been the falling dollar. At the same time, one of the signs of a true bull market in gold is its ability to rise against other currencies... READ MORE
BIOTECH INDEX EXCEEDS SPRING HIGH... We've written several bullish articles on biotechs over the past few months. Here's another one. The reason we're writing about it today is obvious from Chart 1. That chart shows the AMEX Biotechnology Index (BTK) trading over its spring... READ MORE
SMALL CAPS FAIL FIRST TEST OF OLD HIGH ... Earlier today I showed the S&P 600 Small Cap Index testing its summer high at 445 and suggested that was an important test for the rest of the market. It was. And its 1.1% selloff from that resistance may... READ MORE
VARY BOX SIZE FOR SENSITIVITY ... One reader asked why I use a 1% box size on my point & figure charts. I do that for two reasons. One is that a percentage box size makes for easier comparisons between markets. Percentage box sizes eliminate the need to figure out which... READ MORE
BIG DAY FOR ENERGY... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor Energy stocks and Crude Oil were standout performers once again on Wednesday. The United States Oil Fund ETF (USO) started things off with a surge above 62. Media reports... READ MORE
BREADTH DIVERGENCES STILL EXIST... One of the problems we deal with in market analysis is that we often get mixed readings from different technical indicators. This is one of those times. I showed on Friday, for example, that weekly MACD lines had turned positive. Earlier in the week, however, I... READ MORE
Before looking at the chart for the Dow Transports, let's look at the Dow Theory situation. The Dow Industrials and Dow Transports both hit new highs in July and this marked a Dow Theory confirmation (bullish). Despite this bull market confirmation, both dropped sharply from mid July to... READ MORE
The market has had a good run since the August lows, but it is challenging all-time highs, and the technical support has been somewhat anemic. With many indicators reaching into overbought territory, and overhead resistance becoming an issue, it looks like a good time for a pullback or consolidation... READ MORE
Last week, both the Dow Industrials and the S&P 500 broke out to new highs last week in show of modest strength; but what we find more interesting that this circumstance... is that the foreign markets aren't outperforming the US large caps. One only need understand... READ MORE
Last week we launched our new Ticker Cloud feature. Have you seen it? It's a dynamic list of the most requested stocks we've seen over the past 15 minutes. Wanna see what everyone else is looking at? Get your head in the cloud!... READ MORE
Last Friday, I wrote that the weekly MACD lines hadn't turned positive yet for the S&P 500, but were close to doing so. They turned positive this week. I wrote last Friday that "we need to see a positive crossing by the weekly (MACD) lines... READ MORE
I realize that the long-term ChartWatchers out there already know how important our specials are, but I wanted to take a moment to mention it to our newer members. One thing that has never changed at StockCharts.com is our pricing. We have had the exact same price for... READ MORE
FINANCIALS AND SMALL CAPS TURN UP ... On Monday I wrote about the sharp upturn in financials and small caps, and remarked that their new strength had taken a big weight off the market. That strong trend in those two former laggards has had a lot to do with this week&... READ MORE
DRG CLEARS 200-DAY MOVING AVERAGE ... Arthur Hill commented on new buying in pharmaceutcals yesterday. I'd like to expand on that theme today. Although money has been flowing into defensive groups like consumer staples and healthchare, we haven't seen too much interest in pharmaceuticals. Until this... READ MORE
CHIPS WEIGH ON THE NASDAQ... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The Nasdaq Composite came under pressure with notable weakness in semiconductor stocks on Wednesday. The index exceeded its July high earlier this week and is up around 15%... READ MORE
NYSE AD LINE IS LAGGING... After yesterday's new record close by the Dow, I was asked several questions about market breadth. The reason for the questions is shown by Chart 1. Although the NYSE Composite Index closed just below its July peak, the NYSE Advance-Decline line is... READ MORE
SMALL CAPS HAVE STRONG DAY ... Although most of the reporting on today's rally will probably deal mainly with large cap market indexes hitting new highs or close to doing so, the day's biggest gains were seen in small caps. Chart 1 shows the Russell 2000 Small... READ MORE