Sector Leadership Immunizes Stock Market from Bear Market
On Friday, I wrote about the Russell 2000 and what a potential breakout could mean for the stock market. At the open today, this index hit a fresh all-time high. Before breaking out the balloons and party streamers, let’s see if it can close at new highs and not give back too much over the coming days. With the Dow closing above 20,000 for five straight days I will have a new target very shortly that looks to be several […]
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Date: February 13, 2017
Canaries in the Coal Mine Part II – The Key Sectors
Moving to the four key stock market sectors from the indices I don’t see as strong a sign, but it’s definitely not a weak one yet. The bellwether for technology, semiconductors, is first and you can clearly see a sector that is “large and in charge” or “long and strong” to use some trading desk rhymes. This is very bullish long-term. Banks are next and contrary to popular belief, rumors of their demise have been greatly exaggerated. Quite simply, the […]
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Date: October 21, 2016
Pullback Mode Remains the Short-Term Theme
My general theme of pullback mode for stocks continues in all of the major indices except for the NASDAQ 100. Gold and silver have been a more exciting story, but they, too, have paused since I wrote about them last week. Sector leadership remains very strong with semis, banks, transports and energy near their highs at the same time the defensive group has been weak. I wrote about consumer staples looking especially troubled a few weeks ago and nothing has […]
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Date: October 11, 2016
Canaries in the Coal Mine Part I – The Major Indices
For the past month, four of the five major indices have been in pullback mode after three of the five spent the previous month digesting gains from the huge post-BREXIT rally. While that theme continues today, I think the market is getting closer to resuming its uptrend with the Dow heading to 19,000. Turning to the purpose of this article, I am going to first go through the major indices in the context of canaries in the coal mine to […]
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Date: October 10, 2016
Sell Signal Closed Out. New Leadership Emerged
Today is the last day of the month as well as the last day of the quarter. The S&P 500 closed down -0.12% in August and is on track to close down in September unless the bulls can mount a major offensive, which I am not ruling out, and close above 2071. That means a down August and September for the S&P in a presidential election year, something not seen since 1956. You can put that in the category of […]
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Date: September 30, 2016
Not the Fetal Position
Last week, my theme focused on a pullback in the stock market. More importantly, my strong opinion was that it wasn’t a bout of weakness where people should sell in to, but rather to use that opportunity to buy the dip or re-position a portfolio to where it should be over where it was. Friday was an ugly day across the board. Overwhelmingly red. 96% of the volume on the NYSE was in stocks that were down. Besides stocks, bonds […]
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Date: September 12, 2016
Pullback Remains But Transports…
The Dow and S&P 500 are still lagging the other major stock market indices in pullback mode, but contrary to what you may think, this remains a very healthy environment for stocks. In the strongest markets, the more “risk on” indices are the ones charging ahead. That’s the case now with the S&P 400, Russell 2000 and NASDAQ 100. The NYSE Advance/Decline Line which measures broad participation recently scored yet another all-time high and high yield bonds are hanging in […]
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Date: September 9, 2016
Canaries Still Breathing Okay
I haven’t done a canaries in the coal mine update in a while, but with the major market indices hitting fresh highs last week, it’s time to check if any are dead. Remember, canaries in the coal mine are only useful at bull market peaks and bear market troughs. In other words, they are very helpful at spotting beginnings and endings of bull markets, but not much in between. They are so important because they usually give ample warning that […]
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Date: August 13, 2013
Oil Acting Up
Crude oil has very quietly rallied from $93 to $106 over the past few weeks. I am surprised we haven’t heard more from the media about it. Usually when it cracks $100, we hear how it is going to hurt the consumer and lead to recession. And all this while the dollar was strong as well. Thursday’s downside reversal was interesting, especially given how weak the dollar was and I will be closely watching to see if the bears can muster […]
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Date: July 12, 2013
