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Stocks Near Highs After Bullish Outside Candle: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. (New zip file this week.) Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 potentially overbought but few apparent reversal signals Bullish outside candle last week 10-day MA rising for 27 days, longest streak since...
A New Bull Market? Stocks Hit a New 52-Week High as Recession Fears Ease
Stocks rebounded sharply to end June as cooling inflation and strong economic data spurred hopes of a new bull market. The S&P 500 rose 2.3 percent between Friday, June 23, and Friday, June 30. It was the sixth positive week in the last seven. The index also had...
S&P Holds Breakout as Quarter End Approaches: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. MACD cross days available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 stayed 3 points above August 2022 high so far this week Momentum slowing but members above 20-day MAs still exceed...
Chart of the Day: Will Small Caps Follow the S&P Higher?
The Russell 2000 small cap index has lagged all year, but it may be showing some signs of coming to life. The first pattern on today’s chart is the rally in early June, a potential sign of the bulls taking charge. RUT proceeded to retrace half the move before...
Options Traders May Think Carnival Will Keep Sailing Higher
Carnival is the top-performing member of the S&P 500 in June, and one big options trader may think it will keep sailing over the summer. Check out this unusual options activity yesterday in the cruise-ship operator: 20,000 August 16 calls traded for $0.83. 20,000...
Stocks Pause as Summer Begins and Central Banks Talk Tough on Inflation
Stocks began the summer with a pause as central bankers around the world vowed to crush inflation. The S&P 500 fell 1.4 percent in the holiday-shortened week between Friday, June 16, and Friday, June 23. It was the first drop after five positive weeks in a row....
Tech Pauses as Investors Rotate to Cyclicals: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. MACD cross days available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 forming inside bar after large bullish weekly candle VIX falls below February 2020 low Breadth potentially widens as...
Is the Fed Almost Done? Stocks Break Out On Hopes of a Soft Landing
Stocks jumped to a 13-month high as investors hoped the Federal Reserve is almost done hiking interest rates. The S&P 500 rallied above its peak from last August, gaining 2.6 percent between Friday, June 9, and Friday, June 16. The technology-heavy Nasdaq-100...
Potential Reversal Patterns After Fed’s Hawkish Pause: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. MACD cross days available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 Bearish outside day and doji candlestick Potentially overbought, according to Keltner Pullback custom indicator S&P 500 rose for 5...
Stocks Near Highs After Bullish Outside Candle: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. (New zip file this week.) Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 potentially overbought but few apparent reversal signals Bullish outside candle last week 10-day MA rising for 27 days, longest streak since...
A New Bull Market? Stocks Hit a New 52-Week High as Recession Fears Ease
Stocks rebounded sharply to end June as cooling inflation and strong economic data spurred hopes of a new bull market. The S&P 500 rose 2.3 percent between Friday, June 23, and Friday, June 30. It was the sixth positive week in the last seven. The index also had...
S&P Holds Breakout as Quarter End Approaches: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. MACD cross days available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 stayed 3 points above August 2022 high so far this week Momentum slowing but members above 20-day MAs still exceed...
Chart of the Day: Will Small Caps Follow the S&P Higher?
The Russell 2000 small cap index has lagged all year, but it may be showing some signs of coming to life. The first pattern on today’s chart is the rally in early June, a potential sign of the bulls taking charge. RUT proceeded to retrace half the move before...
Options Traders May Think Carnival Will Keep Sailing Higher
Carnival is the top-performing member of the S&P 500 in June, and one big options trader may think it will keep sailing over the summer. Check out this unusual options activity yesterday in the cruise-ship operator: 20,000 August 16 calls traded for $0.83. 20,000...
Stocks Pause as Summer Begins and Central Banks Talk Tough on Inflation
Stocks began the summer with a pause as central bankers around the world vowed to crush inflation. The S&P 500 fell 1.4 percent in the holiday-shortened week between Friday, June 16, and Friday, June 23. It was the first drop after five positive weeks in a row....
Tech Pauses as Investors Rotate to Cyclicals: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. MACD cross days available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 S&P 500 forming inside bar after large bullish weekly candle VIX falls below February 2020 low Breadth potentially widens as...
Is the Fed Almost Done? Stocks Break Out On Hopes of a Soft Landing
Stocks jumped to a 13-month high as investors hoped the Federal Reserve is almost done hiking interest rates. The S&P 500 rallied above its peak from last August, gaining 2.6 percent between Friday, June 9, and Friday, June 16. The technology-heavy Nasdaq-100...
Potential Reversal Patterns After Fed’s Hawkish Pause: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. MACD cross days available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 Bearish outside day and doji candlestick Potentially overbought, according to Keltner Pullback custom indicator S&P 500 rose for 5...
Market Internals Could Be Improving. Here’s How to Follow the Trend.
Some positive trends could be developing beneath the surface of the stock market, according to TradeStation analytics. A growing number of companies in the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 are above their 200-day moving averages. The change comes despite the indexes...
Four Signs That Normalcy Could Be Returning to the Market
After nearly three years of turmoil, normalcy could be returning to markets and the economy. Today we'll consider four trends that could indicate big changes from the chaos that began in early 2020 as coronavirus spread from China's Wuhan province. If they continue,...
Tesla Is Headed for Its Worst Month Ever As Elon Musk Veers Into the Twitterverse
Tesla is headed for its worst month ever as Elon Musk focuses on Twitter and China continues pandemic lockdowns. The electric-vehicle giant is down 26 percent in November through Monday's close. The only other month with a similar decline, according to TradeStation...
Stock Investors Could Gain Optimism as Fed Officials Eye Smaller Hikes
Conditions may be improving in the stock market as investors prepare for a busy week before the homestretch of the year. The S&P 500 slid 0.7 percent between Friday, November 11, and Friday, November 18. The index held its ground following a rally of almost 6...
Positive Inflation News Propels the Nasdaq Higher: Finally a Turn?
Stocks jumped last week on signs inflation may finally be coming under control. The S&P 500 rose 5.9 percent between Friday, November 4, and Friday November 11. It was the biggest weekly gain since June, with 95 percent of the index's members advancing. The...
Art of TradeStation: Go Deeper With Market Breadth
Market breadth analyzes the strength of the overall market by showing how stocks are performing in aggregate. It's a kind of technical analysis that looks deeper than the simple price performance of market-cap weighted major indexes like the S&P 500 and...
Chart of the Day: Does the S&P 500 Have Lessons From History?
Yesterday's CPI report was a reminder that, despite how it feels, the inflation crisis might not last forever. This raises the question of how to think about the Federal Reserve, and makes us look back to previous moments in history. The most relevant precedent could...
Layoffs Increase, Potentially Welcome News for the Federal Reserve
Layoffs are a new trending theme, which is potentially welcome news for the Federal Reserve. The Google Trends chart below shows interest in the term "layoff" tripling since the beginning of October. It's now back to its highest level since May 2020 near the start of...
Chart of the Day: Can Anything Stop Hess?
Energy remains the top-performing sector this year. Today we're focusing a member of the group with potentially classic breakout behavior: Hess. The first pattern on the oil and gas stock's chart is the is the October 26 surge above $137. That was the previous...
The Basics of Options
Options are an increasingly important tool for retail investors. They can either replace trading shares, or make it easier to position yourself in stocks. Let's consider the first things you need to know. An Option's Price Is Usually Called 'Premium' There are some...
The Yield Curve Inverted, and the Bears Are Going to Work
The big story today is that weak economic numbers overseas caused the yield curve to invert. That means the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds fell below the two-year rate. Stocks, especially financials, are crashing as a result. The "inverted curve" is a potentially big...
Trader Fears Reversal In Key Gold Miner: Options Recap
Have gold miners gone from safe havens to risky stocks? One options trader seems to think so. Put volume is surging to a 4-1/2 year high in Newmont Mining (NEM), the world's biggest gold producer. Traders started buying the 23-August 37 puts shortly before lunch,...
Emerging Market ETF Has Options Traders Feeling Bearish
Some big options traders seem to think the pain may continue in emerging markets. Two large strategies were detected today in the MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (EEM), which is heavily concentrated in China and East Asia. One will profit from the fund dropping further,...
Can This Transport Keep Trucking? Options Trader Thinks So
Someone's looking for a major trucking stock to keep motoring higher. Check out Monday's activity in Knight-Swift Transportation (KNX), the country's largest operator of tractor trailers: A block of 25,000 September 35 calls was bought for $3.36.A block of 25,000...
This Social Media Stock Just Had a Monster Volume Day
Suddenly, it seems a new tech stock has arrived. Social media upstart Snap (SNAP), the mobile-centric parent of Snapchat, just proved it's a real player with stunning user growth. That fueled a monster rally on Wednesday to the stock's highest level in over a year....
Is the 5G Boom Starting? A Huge Options Trade Thinks So
Ever heard of 5G networking? One big options trader is looking for the next big thing in tech to drive a breakout in a major global chip stock. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) is the world's third-largest player after Intel (INTC) and Samsung. It's rallying...
South American Oil Giant Gets Big Vote of Confidence: Options Recap
Brazilian markets are running higher, and yesterday an investor placed a big vote of confidence in the nation's most important stock. A large put sale occurred in Petrobras (PBR) minutes after the opening bell. The transaction was unusually bullish, looking for the...
Options Trader Looking for Volatility Spike in Key Airline
Someone thinks activity is going to get more interesting in the world's biggest airline. Options activity spiked in American Airlines (AAL) yesterday, with one transaction accounting for more than half the volume. Here's what happened in a single second during the...
Double Dose of Good News for Economy as 2019 Begins
The U.S. economy has gotten a double dose of good news as 2019 gets underway. Non-farm payrolls had their biggest gain in 10 months, almost doubling forecasters' expectations. But that's not all. The October and November totals were also revised up by 58,000....
Brazil Kicked Off 2019 with a Bang
Latin America's biggest economy kicked off the New Year with a bang as a pro-business government took power. The iShares Brazil ETF (EWZ) ripped 6.4 percent yesterday, its biggest gain since Jair Bolsonaro effectively won the presidency in early October. Brazil is not...
Santa Was Naughty and Nice for Stocks in a Crazy Christmas Week
Santa Claus was naughty and nice for investors last week, delivering one of the craziest Christmas weeks ever. It started with the S&P 500 plunging to its lowest level in 16 months. The index then reversed to enjoy its biggest one-day rally in almost 10 years....
Bulls Target Coca Cola and Silver Options
What do a soft-drink giant and a precious metal fund have in common? They both have bullish options trades today, that's what. Let's start with Coca-Cola (KO). The soda maker is one of the few members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with a gain so far this year or...
Market Jitters Are Lifting Gold Miners
Gold miners are the only winners in this market as mounting worries drive investors to the ultimate safety play. The Dow Jones US Gold Miner Index ($DJUSPM) has gained 5 percent in the last month. That makes the best performer -- and only real gainer -- of more than...
Investors Sold Everything That Wasn’t Nailed Down Last Week
Stocks just finished their worst week in seven years as investors sold everything that wasn't nailed down. All the major sectors declined at least 5 percent. Energy cratered 10 percent, small caps slid 9 percent and Technology dropped 8 percent. The S&P 500's 6.6...
Put Volume Swells in Junk Bond Fund
Options traders seem to be bracing for downside in junk bonds as negativity sweeps financial markets. The iShares High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (HYG) is having its worst month in over three years as investors shun leveraged companies. The largest options trade so far...
Stocks Hammered as Gloom Spreads
Stocks just had their worst week since March as sentiment swung from optimism to fear. The S&P 500 plunged 4.6 percent between Friday, November 30, and Friday, December 7. Barely one-tenth of the index's members closed higher. In a potentially bearish sign,...
Safe Havens Keep Stealing the Show
The market's shift toward "safe havens" is continuing. Utilities, consumer staples, real-estate investment trusts and health care are outperforming again today. They all benefit from lower interest rates and are less exposed to swings in economic growth. Meanwhile...