Complete Thursday Game Plan

Markets fell again, though just slightly on Wednesday as the Nasdaq “outperformed” with a .2% loss compared to the S&P 500’s .3% move lower. It was the fifth straight day of declines for the S&P, all of which finished near their lows for the daily range. It does have an orderly feel to it, but the decline is starting to feel “heavy”. XOM has been in the headlines as it holds the heaviest weight in the XLE with more than 15% weighting. It like the S&P 500 has closed lower 5 consecutive days closing on their lows too. Remember its recent 20 of 21 down days between the days of 7/24-8/21. Its a wonder how the XLE has held up the way it has. Its retreat began at 200 day resistance at the round 90 handle. The second largest holding in the XLE is CVX and it is sporting a cup with handle pattern with a 126.53 trigger point. The base is V shaped which is more failure prone than the rounded bottom one and volume within the handle is too strong. Better to stick with the SLB COP PXD EOG’s in the group. On back to back days we have had NOV and NBL announcing interest in spin offs. In a way I applaud them. But it kind of mimics the problems in the market as a whole. Companies are cutting employees, buying back stock, spin offs for growth. At some point we are going to have to start seeing some top line revenue growth if we want to see higher equity prices going forward.