ChartSmarter Monday Game Plan 4/20/15

Markets fell Friday with the Nasdaq taking the brunt of the selling off 1.5% and the S&P 500 declining by 1.1%. A very mild late afternoon rally helped the indexes finish off lows for the session. Volume accelerated today adding some concern to the selloff. For the week the Nasdaq dropped 1.3% and the S&P 500 by 1% and the YTD figures have the Nasdaq still maintaining its comfortable margin with a 4.4 to 1.2% advantage. There was no room to hide Friday with all 10 major sectors lower with the utilities “performing” the best down .5%. The other 9 of 10 were down .9% or more. In Thursdays Game Plan we discussed the fact the neither the Nasdaq or S&P 500 had recorded an up or down 1% session in the month of April which suggested to us that the possibility of a top being put in, particularly on the Nasdaq with a 15 year double top, was unlikely. One day is hard to assess but Friday felt heavy. Sure it was an options expiration session which elevated trade but looking at names that have been leaders start to fatigue like a WHR or COST, which are now 13 and 8% off recent all time highs, has us a bit concerned. The retail ETF XRT acted poorly this week lower by 2.6% on big weekly trade to finish at weekly lows for the session and undercutting its key 50 day SMA. The fund contains a more diverse bunch of retail names dominated more by smaller cap names and what is important regarding that is smaller cap names tend to lead at both market top and bottoms. Again one day is certainly not enough to make a trend but it is certainly something to keep an eye on going forward.