MICROSOFT GAPS UP 4% TO LEAD THE DOW AND NASDAQ... I've been writing lately about some of the market's largest blue chip stocks that are starting to attract new attention and exert upside market leadership. Today's two cases in point are General Electric and... READ MORE
DOW LEADERSHIP IS RELATIVELY NEW ... The new popularity of the blue chip stocks in the Dow started a little over a year ago. Chart 2 plots a ratio of the Dow divided by the S&P 500. The falling ratio from 2003 through 2005 shows Dow underperformance. After rebounding... READ MORE
A LONG-TERM LOOK AT THE S&P 500 ... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The S&P 500 is up over 100 points in the last eight weeks and the index is zeroing in on its... READ MORE
SEMICONDUCTOR BREAKOUT ... Last Wednesday, Arthur Hill showed Semiconductor Holders (SMH) on the verge of a bullish breakout. It achieved that breakout today (Chart 2). The reason for that can be seen in Chart 1 which shows the Semiconductor (SOX) Index busting out of a five-month holding pattern and trading... READ MORE
Look for Tom's commentary next time.... READ MORE
The Dow Diamonds (DIA) moved to a new all time high this past week and the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) recorded a multi-year high. En route to these highs, both exceeded their late February highs and large-caps are showing relative strength. In addition, both gapped higher... READ MORE
Back in November 2006 I speculated that the 4-Year Cycle trough had arrived in June/July 2006, and that the implication was bullish for stocks - bullish because we normally expect an extended rally out of those cycle lows. At this point, I think that assessment is proving to be... READ MORE
The positive stock market rally is undergoing significant "rotation" within various indices, which in our opinion is quite important from both an investment and trading perspective. First, when we invest or trade, we want to run with the "fastest horses" in order to outperform the markets... READ MORE
Thursday's 4.5% drop in Chinese stocks caused nervous selling in other Asian markets. By the time the U.S. market opened, however, Europe had already started to recover and initial U.S. losses were modest. By day's end, the Dow had closed at a new... READ MORE
The markets did great this week with the Dow hitting record highs and closing in on 13,000 however almost no one here at StockCharts.com was paying much attention. As most ChartWatchers know, we spent much of the week wrestling with technical glitches. I thought I'd take... READ MORE
ASIA RECOVERS ... Thursday's 4.5% drop in Chinese stocks caused nervous selling in other Asian markets. By the time the U.S. market opened, however, Europe had already started to recover and initial U.S. losses were modest. By day's end, the Dow had closed at... READ MORE
PHARM HOLDERS CONTINUE NEW BUYING SURGE ... I happen to believe that one of the most valuable aspects of technical analysis is in the area of group rotation. In fact, that may be its greatest value. I know of no other technique (economic, fundamental, or quantitative) that works better in spotting... READ MORE
NASDAQ STRUGGLES AND HOLDS GAP ... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The Nasdaq struggled today as weakness in Yahoo! (YHOO) weighed on the index. The Nasdaq gapped into a resistance zone on Monday and then stalled the last two... READ MORE
IT NOW TAKES $2.00 TO BUY A POUND ... There's good and bad news for American travelers in Britain. The bad news is that it now takes $2.00 to buy one British Pound. The good news is that figuring out the currency conversion has become a lot... READ MORE
DOLLAR INDEX HITS TWO-YEAR LOW... The threat of a slowing U.S. economy (combined with stronger foreign economies) continues to weigh on the dollar. The weekly bars in Chart 1 show that the US Dollar Index (which measures the dollar against six foreign currencies) fell this week to the... READ MORE
HEALTHCARE SPDR BREAKS OUT ... Last Friday I wrote about new signs of life in the traditionally defensive healthcare sector. I also wrote that most of that new leadership was coming from biotechs and pharmaceuticals. Since then, healthcare has taken off. Chart 1 shows the Health Care SPDR (XLV) gapping up... READ MORE
RISING COMMODITIES BOOST CANADIAN MARKET ... Last Friday I mentioned that a falling dollar was good for foreign stocks. I also mentioned that rising commodities were especially good for commodity exporters like Australia, Canada, and Latin America. All three have been global leaders early in 2007. I'm going to... READ MORE
TURNED BACK AT THE GAP... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor Stocks retreated on Wednesday with big techs leading the way lower. The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQQ) met resistance from the late February gap and fell around 1% today.... READ MORE
BOTH ETFS ACHIEVE BULLISH BREAKOUTS ... Energy stocks continue their upward climb. The Energy SPDR (XLE) broke through its December high at 62.13 to reach a new record high (Chart 1). That's not all. The XLE/SPX ratio (top of chart) has broken an eight-month down trendline... READ MORE
The put call ratio ("PC") is quite simply the total number of put options divided by the total number of call options. These options include both individual equity options and index options. Every day you can monitor the relationship between put options and call options at www.cboe.... READ MORE
The Nasdaq rally continued into its fourth week with a gap up on Tuesday and move into the late February gap zone. This late February gap started a sharp decline to the March lows and the recovery back above 2460 is quite impressive. Even though volume is not so impressive,... READ MORE
Our Thrust/Trend Model (T/TM) is so-named because it treats bottoms and tops differently - tops tend to be rounded trend changes, and bottoms tend to be formed by sharp changes in direction accompanied by internal up thrusts. At price tops, T/TM changes from a buy to neutral... READ MORE
For the past couple of weeks, the markets have focused in upon crude oil prices and their attendant rise given the Iran hostage situation. The prevailing thought was that "geopolitical premium" was on the order of $4-to-$5 a barrel of the $67/barrel price; and that... READ MORE
Regular readers know that we've been trying to complete a big upgrade to our server room for almost a year now. It's been extremely frustrating dealing with the various powers-that-be about completing things, but we are on the verge of the last big step... READ MORE
The U.S. Dollar Index fell during the week and is drawing dangerously close to last December's low (green circle). The foreign currency with the biggest influence on the USD is the Euro. Expectation for continuing economic strength in Europe - and the likelihood for further ECB rate hikes... READ MORE
Hello Fellow ChartWatchers! This week I thought we'd look at something different - the charts that matter the most to me personally. Now, brace yourself... these charts are not financial charts. Nope. These are the charts that tell us at an instant how well the StockCharts.com website is... READ MORE
EURO HITS TWO-YEAR HIGH AGAINST DOLLAR... The U.S. Dollar Index fell during the week and is drawing dangerously close to last December's low (green circle). The foreign currency with the biggest influence on the USD is the Euro. Expectation for continuing economic strength in Europe -- and... READ MORE
STALLING AT THE GAP... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The Nasdaq 100 ETF (QQQQ) and S&P 500 ETF (SPY) both reclaimed their 50-day moving averages yesterday and then edged higher today. The market was quite... READ MORE
AIRLINES, RETAIL, AND FINANCIALS LEAD RALLY ... A combination of bullish factors pushed the stock market sharply higher today. One of the those was a big drop in the price of oil. Naturally, that gave a big boost to transportation stocks and airlines in particular. Airlines rose more than 3% on... READ MORE
COMMODITIES TOP ASSET WHILE DOLLAR IS WEAKEST ... A review of the first quarter performance numbers reveals some interesting trends. Among market sectors, the strongest (in order of relative strength) were basic materials, utilities, energy, telecom, and consumer staples. The weakest were financials and housing. From an asset class standpoint, commodities... READ MORE
CHINESE SANCTION WEIGH ON DOLLAR AND BONDS ... A Commerce Department announcement on Friday of new sanctions on imports from China took the markets by surprise. Bonds, the dollar, and stocks took the news badly. The biggest potential losers are bonds and the dollar. The Chinese are huge holders of dollar... READ MORE
RETAIL STOCKS ARE STARTING TO UNDERPERFORM ... With all the recent bearish news on housing, combined with rising oil prices, odds for an economic slowdown have increased. Recent economic reports show that business investment has been declining for several months. That leaves the consumer to keep the economy afloat. That being... READ MORE
HAWKS, DURABLES AND OIL RATTLE STOCKS... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor Stocks got off to a bad start this morning from rising oil prices and weaker-than-expected durable goods orders. There was a bounce around midday, but... READ MORE
LENNAR MAY BE IN FINAL STAGE OF MAJOR TOP ... More bad news from Lennar pushed homebuilders, REITs, and financial stocks lower today. Given the daily focus on the housing sector, this is as good a time as any to take a longer-term look at at the group. Unfortunately, the... READ MORE
HOMEBUILDERS WEAKEN ... Anything tied to housing or real estate was sold today. The reason is the report that new home sales fell "unexpectedly" in February by 3.9% to the lowest level in nearly seven years. At the same time, inventories rose 1.6% to the highest level... READ MORE
TELECOM HOLDERS REVISITED ... A review of market sectors over the last month shows a decided preference for defensive stocks. The four top sectors over the last month have been energy (+4.4%), utilities (+3.5%), telecom (2.8%), and consumer staples (-.08%). [Although consumer staples lost ground, they did better... READ MORE
ENERGY SPDR HITS NEW 2007 HIGH ... I've recently highlighted new strength in the oil service sector. With crude oil trading back over $61 today (and gasoline inventories dropping for the sixth consecutive week), money continues to flow into the energy sector. Chart 1 shows the Energy SPDR (XLE)... READ MORE
STOCKS SURGE AFTER FED ANNOUNCEMENT... Today's Market Message was written by Arthur Hill. John Murphy will be back tomorrow. - Editor The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept the fed-funds rate unchanged and stocks greeted the news with a big advance. The policy statement noted that there were... READ MORE
MARKET ON FED WATCH ... It's doubtful that the Fed will take any action on interest rates tomorrow. Some are hoping, however, for a change in the wording of its statement. Over the past few months, the Fed has expressed more concern about the elevated inflation rate and less... READ MORE
OIL SERVICE HOLDERS SHOW NEW LEADERSHIP ... After nearly a year of underperformance, oil service stocks are starting to show new market leadership. The Oil Service Holders (OIH) are up more than 3% today and are the day's strongest ETF. [Energy is the day's strongest sector]. Chart... READ MORE