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Stocks Challenge Highs as Bulls Wait for Debt Ceiling Progress
Stocks are challenging their highs for the year as investors wait for Congress to raise the national debt limit. The S&P 500 rose 1.6 percent between Friday, May 12, and Friday, May 19. It was the biggest gain in the last seven weeks as the index reached its...
Growth Stocks Are Leading Again as Inflation Worries Fade
Growth stocks like Alphabet are leading again as inflation continues to fade. The S&P 500 slid 0.3 percent between Friday, May 5 and Friday, May 12, while the Nasdaq-100 rose 0.6 percent. It was the third consecutive week that the technology-heavy Nasdaq...
Inflation Cools as Market Hopes for Debt Ceiling Resolution: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 Current range: 4050 to 4187Kicker candlestick on FridayConsecutive weekly lows around 4050 suggest higher support in placeIndex holding near top of range, above 10-day...
Attention Fed Watchers: 4 Reasons Why April’s Inflation Report Could Be Good News
Consumer prices rose 4.9 percent in April, which could be good news for investors worried about inflation and the Federal Reserve. The reading was below 5.25 percent, the top of the central bank's target range. This represents the first drop below the Fed funds rate...
Options Alert: Call Volume Grows as Salesforce.com Nears Highs
Major technology stocks like Apple and Microsoft jumped on quarterly results. Will peer Saleforce.com make a similar move? Marc Benioff's provider of cloud-based marketing software is up 49 percent this year after a sharp selloff in 2022. It has paused over the last...
Technical Analysis: Amazon.com Could Be Struggling After Uncertain Guidance
Amazon.com may be showing signs of weakness after another post-earnings drop. The first pattern on today’s chart is the rising trendline along the lows of March and April. AMZN fell to that support last week after issuing so-so guidance and has remained there since....
Stock Market Faces Big Tests After a String of Positive Earnings
Earnings season has gone better than feared, but traders face new uncertainties this week. Today and the next two sessions bring key news on the impact of bank failures, the U.S. debt ceiling and inflation. It's a big change from recent weeks, when strong quarterly...
Double Top Before the Debt Ceiling? Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 Attention now turns to debt ceilingPotential double-top versus February highFalse breakout on weekly chart versus last weekTight range has potential for increased volatilityFewer...
Stocks Keep Fighting Higher as Inflation Slows and Earnings Beat Expectations
Stocks kept fighting higher last month as inflation slowed and earnings beat estimates. The S&P 500 rose 1.5 percent in April, its third gain in the first four months of the year. The index has returned to challenge its February high, and is still above falling...
Stocks Challenge Highs as Bulls Wait for Debt Ceiling Progress
Stocks are challenging their highs for the year as investors wait for Congress to raise the national debt limit. The S&P 500 rose 1.6 percent between Friday, May 12, and Friday, May 19. It was the biggest gain in the last seven weeks as the index reached its...
Growth Stocks Are Leading Again as Inflation Worries Fade
Growth stocks like Alphabet are leading again as inflation continues to fade. The S&P 500 slid 0.3 percent between Friday, May 5 and Friday, May 12, while the Nasdaq-100 rose 0.6 percent. It was the third consecutive week that the technology-heavy Nasdaq...
Inflation Cools as Market Hopes for Debt Ceiling Resolution: Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 Current range: 4050 to 4187Kicker candlestick on FridayConsecutive weekly lows around 4050 suggest higher support in placeIndex holding near top of range, above 10-day...
Attention Fed Watchers: 4 Reasons Why April’s Inflation Report Could Be Good News
Consumer prices rose 4.9 percent in April, which could be good news for investors worried about inflation and the Federal Reserve. The reading was below 5.25 percent, the top of the central bank's target range. This represents the first drop below the Fed funds rate...
Options Alert: Call Volume Grows as Salesforce.com Nears Highs
Major technology stocks like Apple and Microsoft jumped on quarterly results. Will peer Saleforce.com make a similar move? Marc Benioff's provider of cloud-based marketing software is up 49 percent this year after a sharp selloff in 2022. It has paused over the last...
Technical Analysis: Amazon.com Could Be Struggling After Uncertain Guidance
Amazon.com may be showing signs of weakness after another post-earnings drop. The first pattern on today’s chart is the rising trendline along the lows of March and April. AMZN fell to that support last week after issuing so-so guidance and has remained there since....
Stock Market Faces Big Tests After a String of Positive Earnings
Earnings season has gone better than feared, but traders face new uncertainties this week. Today and the next two sessions bring key news on the impact of bank failures, the U.S. debt ceiling and inflation. It's a big change from recent weeks, when strong quarterly...
Double Top Before the Debt Ceiling? Market Trends This Week
Downloads are available here. Register for Market Trends here. Sizing Up the S&P 500 Attention now turns to debt ceilingPotential double-top versus February highFalse breakout on weekly chart versus last weekTight range has potential for increased volatilityFewer...
Stocks Keep Fighting Higher as Inflation Slows and Earnings Beat Expectations
Stocks kept fighting higher last month as inflation slowed and earnings beat estimates. The S&P 500 rose 1.5 percent in April, its third gain in the first four months of the year. The index has returned to challenge its February high, and is still above falling...
Tired of the Fed? Earnings Could Bring a Welcome Change to Markets in October
September was another rough month for investors as the Federal Reserve kept pushing interest rates higher. But the focus is likely to change in October as major companies like Apple report earnings. The S&P 500 slid 9.3 percent in September, its biggest monthly...
Technical Analysis: Oil Giant Hasn’t Done This All Year
Exxon Mobil has been drifting since the late spring along with other energy stocks. But now it’s trying to do something it hasn’t done all year. The main pattern on today’s chart is the 200-day moving average, one of the most basic measures of long-term support. XOM...
Can Stocks Hang On After Another Painful Blow from the Federal Reserve?
Stocks are trying to hold their lows of the year after another painful blow from the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 dropped 4.7 percent between Friday, September 16, and Friday, September 25. It was the fifth negative week in the last six, landing the index at its...
Chart of the Day: Target Could Be Breaking a Triangle
Target gapped lower on weak earnings four months ago. Now it may be showing signs of the bearish trend continuing. The main pattern on the retailer is a converging squeeze between the 50-day moving average and the 100-day moving average . This has produced ... For...
Federal Reserve Gives No Sign of Relenting in Battle Against Inflation
The Federal Reserve is giving markets no relief in its battle against inflation. Aside from hiking interest rates by 75 basis points, as expected yesterday, the central bank increased its guidance. Policymakers indicated that their rate will end the year at 4.4...
Is a Reversal Coming? Rate of Change Can Help Spot Turns in the Stock Market
Not all price moves are created equal. Today we'll explore a common tool for judging the strength of a rally or decline: the rate of change indicator. Rate of change shows the percentage change over a certain number of trailing bars. (TradeStation's platforms use a...
Stocks Remain Under Pressure Before a Major Federal Reserve Meeting
Stocks remain under pressure as investors brace for another interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 slid 4.8 percent between Friday, September 9, and Friday, September 16. It was the fourth negative week in the last five, and the biggest drop since...
Technical Analysis: Tight Consolidation in Another Clean Energy Stock
Clean-energy stocks have been one of the strongest parts of the market lately, and today’s chart focuses on a new battery-tech name: Stem. The first pattern is the quick uptrend in late summer, fueled by the Inflation Reduction Act and strong quarterly results on...
Chart of the Day: Is It Time to Go Back to the Well in Occidental?
Occidental Petroleum is the biggest gainer in the S&P 500 this year, but was the biggest decliner last week. Is the dip an opportunity for the bulls? The first pattern on today's chart is the surge to a new 52-week high in late August. It is one of only 12 S&P...
Bulls Chasing Strongest Name in a Breakout Sector: Options Recap
Semiconductors have broken out to new highs, and one investor is targeting more gains in one of the industry's top performers. Marvell Technology (MRVL), whose chips are used for data storage and networking, has climbed 11 percent in the last week. That makes it the...
Energy Bulls Still Looking for Oil Sands Breakout: Options Recap
Options traders are targeting an obscure Canadian energy stock as oil pushes to its highest level in over four months. Check out the surging call volume yesterday in Cenovus Energy (CVE), which extracts crude oil from the sands of Alberta province: Roughly 33,000...
Energy Bears Chase Downside in Ocean Driller: Options Recap
Someone seems to think the downside will continue in a debt-laden energy stock. McDermott (MDR), a provider of services like offshore drilling and engineering, has lost about two-thirds of its value in the last year. Today a large options transaction looked for the...
Bears Place Bets Against Macau Casino: Options Recap
A Chinese casino operator is struggling at resistance, and bearish options traders are betting on a drop. Melco Resorts & Entertainment (MLCO) has been trapped around $23.50 for the last month. That level was also a peak in June 2017, which could make some chart...
Waiting for Uber IPO? Here Comes Yandex
Everyone's waiting for Lyft and Uber to go public. Did you know Russia's top Internet stock is also active in the ride-sharing space? Last month, Yandex (YNDX) reported 216 percent revenue growth for its Taxi division as ridership more than doubled. The service...
Back from the Dead? High-Stakes Options Trade in Hospital Space
A hospital company drowning in liabilities just reported good results. Now a trader is using options to position for a comeback. Here's a breakdown of the strategy detected yesterday afternoon in Community Health (CYH): 20,000 September 4 puts were sold for...
Metals on the Move as Dollar Takes a Hit
Metals came back from the long weekend with a bang as money poured into gold and copper. Globex's gold futures (@GC) traded almost 333,000 contracts yesterday, the busiest session since October 11. Prices also advanced 1.7 percent, their biggest gain of the...
Energy Bulls Target Obscure Canadian Firm: Options Recap
Energy stocks are rallying this week, and one big investor is targeting an obscure Canadian producer. Roughly 83,000 March 9 calls were bought this morning in Cenovus Energy (CVE), which extracts oil from Alberta's tar sands. The big blocks priced for $0.27 and...
Options Recap: Traders See Maximum Altitude for Key Airline
Someone seems to think a major carrier may have reached its maximum altitude for now. Check out the large options trade yesterday in American Airlines (AAL): A block of 37,778 March 36 puts was bought for $1.37. At the same time, a matching number of March 37 calls...
Indexes Rule the Roost Amid Volatility Surge: October at TradeStation
Clients returned to exchange-traded funds in October as volatility shifted attention to the broader indexes. Five of the 10 most active symbols on TradeStation last month were ETFs. That's a big difference compared with tranquil September, when there was only one....
A Red-Hot Tech Trade Continues to Cool
The selloff in chip stocks may be justified, according to new data. Global sales grew just 13.8 percent in September, according to numbers released Friday by the Semiconductor Industry Association. That was the weakest monthly growth since December 2016, and follows a...
Don’t Worry, October’s Almost Over
Here's one good thing you can say about October: It's almost finished. The S&P 500 is in the midst of its worst month since early 2009, down almost 9 percent since the end of September. That includes a 4 percent drop last week as waves of bearishness swamped...
Perfect Storm Handing Nasdaq its Worst Month Since 2008
A perfect storm of negatives is handing the Nasdaq-100 its worst month since the financial crisis. The technology-heavy index lost 11 percent of its value between the end of September and yesterday's close. Depending on where this October ends, it'll compare with...
Chips and China Tech Are Killing the Nasdaq
The Nasdaq-100 is getting hammered again this morning, with two groups accounting for most of the pain. As this RadarScreen® shows, nine of the 10 worst-performing companies in the index today are either semiconductor-related names or Chinese Internet stocks. Biotech...
Can Indexes Hold After Buyers Defend Key Levels?
Stocks fell yesterday, but it almost felt like a bullish day when you consider how much worse it could have been. The S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 2-3 percent about halfway through the morning. They probed some key levels for...
Some Key Funds May Be on the Precipice
Volatility's on the rise this month, and three popular ETFs are trying to hang on. The Market Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH), S&P SPDR Financial ETF (XLF) and S&P SPDR Energy ETF (XLE) had all slammed down to apparent support levels earlier in the year. At...
Clients Rush Back to ETFs as Volatility Pops
Clients are rushing back to exchange-traded funds this month as volatility mounts. Five of the 10 most heavily traded symbols with TradeStation in October are ETFs. That marks a sharp swing from September, when calm market conditions pushed attention toward...
Stocks Cling to Gains After Volatility Shock
Stocks are trying to hold their ground after a brutal volatility shock earlier this month. The S&P 500 rose less than 0.1 percent between Friday, October 12, and Friday, October 19 -- its first gain in three weeks. The index is still down more than 5 percent since...