Markets continued their volatile ways Friday although they never reversed from negative territory, as they were in the green all day. The S&P 500 rose 1.3% Friday, while the Nasdaq rose 1%. Both benchmarks did lose ground for the week, but finished well into the upper half of their weekly ranges on big trade, a positive sign. Wednesday and Thursday the bulls stepped up to the plate, and erased big early losses and Friday demonstrated fine follow through. That being said both indexes did meet firm resistance at their respective round numbers and their 200 day SMAs. For the Nasdaq the figure was 4300 and the S&P 500 it was 1900. For the YTD tally the S&P 500 retains its fractional advantage over the Nasdaq by a 2.1 to 2% margin. The large cap Dow gained ground for the first time in 7 days Friday and is negative YTD lower by 1.2%. Energy the group that started the bounce Wednesday did see many names reverse off their highs through Fridays session. A cause for concern, or just coming off some massive bounces? Stocks like EOG APC HP and INT all finished Friday lower. Small cap CWEI has undergone a quasi split in 2014, now down 50% from recent all time highs, without of course the shareholders receiving the additional shares. MTDR acted in concert with the Nasdaq and S&P 500, without the benchmarks reversing as hard. MTDR met steely resistance at its 200 day SMA dropping 9% from intraday highs and falling more than 4% Friday. Will that be a “canary in the coal mine” theme in the coming weeks as the bears defend the 200 day SMAs on the indexes?

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