Good morning! The lack of significant volume last Thursday afternoon, indicating no strong exhaustion on the selloff from the day's highs, helped weigh the market down heading in Friday morning. While the indices did not really gap lower, the selling continued almost right out of the open. Volume finally spiked around 10:30-10:45 ET when the Dow Jones Ind. Ave. came into its 10, 20 and 50 day simple moving averages that had been converging due to the long range on the weekly charts. This created the exhaustion necessary for a more significant correction to the selling.
As on Thursday, the pace of the morning decline was nothing to be trifled with. When the market did begin to bounce, it did so very gradually. There was a lot of choppy action as the indices climbed into their 15 minute 20 sma resistance levels. When those hit the indices fell flat along the resistance. This was typical of a shallow Phoenix or Cup-With-Handle. They aren't as pretty as the patterns you see in a textbook, but the difference is that they represent a change in pace off a sharp decline and when they trigger they can put in a move that is much more substantial than the initial correction from lows had been. It set the tone for a move higher into the last two hours of the day.
As the range progressed over noon, the market began to hug the upper trend channel. Volume dropped off as it did so going into the 14:00 ET reversal period. 13:00 ET and 14:00 ET are very popular breakout times in the market, but the initial attempt was short-lived. It took a small bull flag on the 2 minute charts to keep the rally going. In both cases, however, the pace was much greater than it had been going into noon. While the buying slowed into the last hour of the day, it didn't stop until the NASDAQ had ran into its 15 minute 200 sma resistance intraday and the Dow was coming into the prior day's highs.
Heading into the new week the daily charts are looking pretty strong. The market is coming off 20 week sma support quite nicely, but I do have some reservations. My primary concern is that when I scanned this weekend, there appeared to be a great deal more weekly charts that favored a continuation to their corrections from recent highs than there were new buy patterns getting ready to set up. So far this year, since I returned from the holidays around Jan. 9th, I've been doing more in terms of managing open positions and trailing out of position trades than entering new ones. Those I have gotten into are quite a mixed basket. Half are up. Half are down. Overall I still don't see this as being the best place in terms of the overall market for adding new longer term positions, although it's been pretty decent for the short term since the market is giving us some strong intraday moves. Even then, however, I have been a lot more picky and hence a lot less active.
Economic Reports and Events
Feb. 14: Retail Sales for Jan (8:30 am), Retail Sales ex-auto for Jan (8:30 am), Business Inventories for Dec (10:00 am)
Feb. 15: NY Empire State Index for Feb. (8:30 am), Net Foreign Purchases for Dec (9:00 am), Capacity Utilization for Jan (9:15 am), Industrial Production for Jan (9:15 am), Crude Inventories 02/10 (10:30 am)
Feb. 16: Building Permits for Jan (8:30 am), Export Prices ex-ag. for Jan (8:30 am), Housing Starts for Jan (8:30 am), Import Prices ex-oil for Jan (8:30 am), Initial Claims 02/11 (8:30 am), Philadelphia Fed for Feb. (12:00 pm)
Feb. 17: Core PPI for Jan (8:30 am), PPI for Jan (8:30 am), Mich. Sentiment-Prel. for Feb. (9:50 am)
Earnings Announcements of Interest
Only stocks with an average daily volume of 500K+ are listed. List may not be complete so be sure to always check your stock's earnings date before holding a position overnight. (A) = Earnings after the close, (B) = Earnings before the open, (?) = Earnings time not specified at the time of this writing
Feb. 13: A (?), ANR (B), BRO (A), CD (4:00 pm ET), CMED (07:00 am ET), DDR (A), ENCY (?), GLG (B), HMY (01:00 am ET), IVIL (A), KIM (?), LNCR (A), LNC (A), STO (02:30 am ET), STP (A), ELOS (B), SVM (B), VAL (?), VECO (A)
Feb. 14: ANF (A), LEND (B), EYE (B), AEE (B), ACAS (A), BHP (?), CEPH (A), DADE (A), DE (?), DE (?), DQE (B), FTI (A), HL (?), N (B), IM (A), JAH (?), LVS (A), MMC (B), MAS (?), OSI (A), PLAB (A), STR (A), Q (B), RNWK (?), SIAL (A), TRAD (?), RIG (B), UBS (01:00 am ET), UMC (08:00 am ET), WMI (B)
Feb. 15: AMAT (?), AQNT (A), BIIB (A), CECO (?), CMX (B), CEN (B), XEC (B), DVW (?), DVA (B), DENN (A), DGIN (A), DPL (A), DTE (A), ECA (?), ENDP (B), EXPE (?), FST (A), GENZ (B), HC (?), HPQ (?), HRP (B), JNY (B), MT (?), MRVC (A), NTAP (A), ODP (?), PKD (B), PENN (B), PGN (B), SNPS (A), TOT (02:00 am ET)
Feb. 16: ABB (B), AAP (B), AEIS (A), AMMD (A), BHI (B), BRCD (A), COG (A), DELL (A), GLBL (B), GT (B), GES (?), ICGE (B), LCP (?), LEH (B), LEXR (A), LTR (B), LTXX (A9, MRH (A), NTGR (A), NU (?), NPSP (?), NVDA (?), ONXX (B), PLD (B), PSYS (A), RYI (A), SAPE (A), SIMG (A), TGT (?), TKLC (B), FAF (B), UBB (?), WPI (A), XMSR (B)
Feb. 17: APPX (?), CPB (?), PBR (A), PCG (?), RSH (?), SIRI (B)
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance. Occasionally changes will occur that are made after the posting of this column.
Toni Hansen is President and Co-founder of the Bastiat Group, Inc., and runs the popular Trading From Main Street. She can be reached at Toni@tradingfrommainstreet.com.