Market Commentary

A Few Thoughts Before the Open: In looking at the charts from yesterday’s trading activity I do not see anything that really stands out as being significant. However there are two things worth noting. The 1st being that the NASDAQ 100 ‘NDX’ looks to be stronger than the other major market indices. In comparing the charts of the Nasdaq 100 to the Dow Jones Industrial Average there appears to be a divergence in their performance over the course of the last year. However other than the fact that the Nasdaq 100 declined significantly more following the dot.com bubble bursting and therefore has a greater amount to recover, I can’t find any significance to this.

A Few Thoughts Before the Open: In looking at the charts from Friday’s activity the extreme vast majority of the charts were to the upside. However very few had broken above upside resistance levels. The individual stocks within the overall market currently have an extremely correlation with the movement of the major market indices. I feel this a result of the increased use of exchange traded funds (ETFs) and computer driven trading; basically I think all the programers went to the same school and are following the same playbook. However this

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 186 points to close at 11,433.18 This took the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the upper end of its trading range. However despite the nearly 500 point move higher by the Dow it is still below its 40 day moving average and has not broken through upside resistance which I see being at 11,493.57 on a closing basis. Until the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 11,493.57 (which it could do today), I still consider the Dow to be in a sideways trading pattern with the upper end at 11,493.57 and the lower end at 10,719.94

A Look at Wednesday’s Activity:

The overall market staged a strong rally during the afternoon before profit taking in the last half hour of trading trimmed some of the gains. However, the overall market still put in a strong move higher in a broad based move that saw every index I track move higher with the exception of the Gold indices. The best performers on the day were the High Tech, Transports, Airlines, Financials, Cyclicals, Retailers, and Energy indices.

It looks like a big factor in the markets move higher was comments by Secretary Geithner that the Europeans would not let their banks fail. Unfortunately, I think the voters in Europe may not be thinking the same.

A Look at Tuesday’s Trading Activity:

The overall market moved moderately higher in a relatively broad based move that saw all the sector indices I track move higher as well. The strongest sectors were the Airlines, Transports, High Tech, Broker/Dealers, Cyclicals, Chemicals, and Banking indices.

A Few Thoughts Before the Open:

In looking at the charts of yesterday’s trading activities for the various indices I track I did not see anything that really stood out as noticeable. The vast majority of indices I looked at still have negative chart patterns…………………

A Look at Monday’s Activity:

The overall market staged a late rally with the Dow Jones Industrial Average moving almost 200 points higher in the final 45 minutes of trading on the day. This was an impressive rally that saw almost every sector index I track move higher on the day. The strongest sectors were the Semiconductors, Banking, High Tech, Retailers, Oil Services, Insurance, Broker/Dealers, Healthcare related, and Consumer indices. There was weakness in the Gold/Silver, Commodities, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Cyclicals, and Transports.

A Few Thoughts Before the Open:

In looking at the charts from yesterday’s trading activity I have the following thoughts and comments.

1. The 1st being that high tech indices were obviously the strongest performers on the day. I believe this is primarily a result of Broadcom’s acquisition of NetLogic for $3.7 billion.

2. Despite the strong move back higher at the end of the day, the vast majority of the indices I looked at simply recovered from a deeply oversold position. However it still left the majority of them with negative chart patterns. I saw nothing to indicate a market rally would start anytime soon.

The markets are obviously under pressure due to the continuing sovereign debt problems in Europe. The fact that the Europeans are having these problems should come as no surprise to anyone. A big portion of the current phase of the European sovereign debt crisis is an unwillingness of voters on both sides of the table to go along with the bailout program. In our June Market Commentary Blog I warned our readers that this could potentially be a big problem.

I think there is a serious possibility that the voters in these debtor countries will be more than willing to drive their own bus off the cliff with the petal to metal, full speed ahead. I am not sure there is much that we, or anyone else outside of these countries can do to prevent this.

A Few Thoughts Before the Open:

The pre-open futures are sharply lower for all the major market indices. It looks like we are in for another day to the downside here in the United States. I think today is a good time to take a look at the support levels on the various indices I have writing about recently. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the most significant market index in the United States, it is the leader to which all other indices march.