In today’s edition of the Sterling Market Commentary I take a look at the results from Thursday’s market, and provide my thoughts on Friday’s market activity. Additionally I have now initiated coverage on the NASDAQ 100 Index ‘NDX’. I have included chart on the NASDAQ 100 Index ‘NDX’ for our readers review.
A Few Thoughts on Monday’s Market: In looking at the charts from Friday’s market I noticed a couple of items of interest. The 1st being that the majority of the various sector indices I track appear to continue to be moving lower. The Amex Gold/Silver Index ‘XAU’, the S&P Chemicals Index ‘CEX’ and the Amex Oil & Gas Index ‘XOI’ (which touched its 200 day moving average on Friday) all appear to be in the process of breaking support and heading lower. The banking indices, the S&P Banking Index ‘BIX’ and the KBW Banking Index ‘BKW’ both sold off sharply on Friday. The ‘BIX’ broke below an upward sloping trendline that had provided support and looks to be starting a new downturn. While the ‘BKW’ is right on the its upward sloping trendline. Another down day in the banking stocks and we could see some real the start of an intermediate downtrend in these stocks. As far as the overall market goes, I am expecting a lackluster, with a slight downward bias, pair of trading days prior to Tuesday night’s Presidential debate.
We are going to start something new today at Sterling Investments; we are going to start tweeting our daily trading idea. I used to to publish a daily trading letter, the Sterling Prime Stock Newsletter, but I found that the changes to the market from the rise of modern computer driven trading has pushed the time by which I selected the day’s recommendation closer and closer to the open where I was unable to publish the recommendation with enough time for my readers to take advantage of the recommendation. Additionally as the volatility in the market increased, I found the short term trading of individual stocks to be increasingly more difficult to manage. This resulted in my shifting my trading strategy to one of covered puts and calls. Granted it is not the most exciting, but the results are a lot more consistent. So, starting with tomorrow’s market commentary, I am going to start tweeting our daily stock and options recommendation once we have selected the position.
If you would like to follow our daily activities, on Twitter we can be found at sterlinginv
In my review of the charts from yesterday’s trading activity I noticed that the vast majority of the various indices I track appear to be starting to move lower. This is generally a bearish signal for the overall market. The second thing I noticed was the vast majority of the heavy volume stocks appear to be moving lower, another bearish signal for the overall market. It looks to me as if we are starting a market pullback. If that is the case, then I expect the Dow Jones Industrial Average to move lower and test support at 12,719.49 If that level fails to hold support on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, then I see a good possibility that the Dow Industrials will move lower and test …..
A Few Thoughts on Tuesday’s Market: In looking at the charts of the various indices I track, I noticed a couple of things. The 1st being that several of the various sector indices appear to be looking as if they could easily turn lower. Additionally the Gold/Silver indices continue to look weak. The second thing that I noticed is that a couple of the high tech indices appear to have gone parabolic with their chart patterns. In effect, they sort of look similar to the chart of Apple, Inc. ‘AAPL’ over the course of the last several months. The NASDAQ 100 has also been effected by this as well. This is a result of the way in which these indices are designed. They are capitalization weighted indices, which means that the ratio, or weighting, of the stocks within the index is based upon the market capitalization of the companies that comprise the index. I have never been in favor of this form of index construction. I think it has several drawbacks, some of which can have very devastating consequences……
The overall market moved moderately higher on Wednesday in a broad based move that saw almost every sector indices I track move higher on the day. The strongest sectors on the day were the High Tech, Biotech, Broker/Dealers, Airlines, Banking, Cyclicals. Insurance and Chemicals. Not a single stock index I track moved lower on the day. Oil was lower by $0.87 to $97.61 per barrel, and Gold was higher by $9.30 to $1,747.10 per ounce. In the grain market, Wheat was higher by $0.0882 to $6.742 per bushel, and Corn was higher by $0.030 to $6.420 per bushel, and Soybeans were higher by $0.162 to $12.152 per bushel……..
The overall market finished Tuesday mixed with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average finishing slightly lower, while the NASDAQ finished the day slightly higher. There was strength in the Transports, Utilities, Banking, Airlines, Broker/Dealers, High Tech, Oil & Gas, Biotech, and Healthcare indices. There was weakness in the Gold/Silver, Commodities, Cyclicals, Consumer, Retailers, Insurance, and Oil Services indices. Oil was lower by $0.30 to $98.48 per barrel, and Gold was higher by $6.80 to $1,737.80 per ounce. In the grain markets, Wheat was higher by $0.212 to $6.660 per bushel, and Corn was higher by $0.074 to $6.452 per bushel, while Soybeans were higher by $0.36 to $11.990 per bushel.
Early futures are once again higher as the politicians in Europe talk about solving problems without providing any real solution. People really need to be paying attention to the substance of these stories and not just the headlines. In looking at the charts from yesterday’s trading activity, I noticed that with the exception of the high tech indices the rest of the various indices I track appear to be….
The overall market is rather dull right now; something I find rather interesting considering the Fed’s recent announcement of prolonged ultra-low interest rates and what I consider to be rather good corporate earnings announcements. I take this to be a sign that investors are not really to enthused about the prospects for the world economy for 2012. While it is tempting to call for a market pullback, there is an old saying about never short a dull market. While my 1st Rule of Trends is that a trend remains in place until it is broken; my 2nd Rule of Trends is ……….
I will admit I am just not enthused about much of anything this morning. I am deeply disappointed by the negative campaigning by the Republican candidates, I think Obama’s election year politics are going to be deeply destructive, and the Bernanke’s Fed is creating a bond bubble and in the process enabling disasterous policies that could make the 2008 financial crisis look like a warmup event. Additionally I do not see the European financial crisis as really being solved, or anything close to it. I guess I am just in one those moods.
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