ChartSmarter Friday Game Plan 5/8/15

Markets rose Thursday with the Nasdaq rising .5% and the S&P 500 by .4%, however volume was limp. The leading Nasdaq continues to look wounded and without a gain of better than 1.3% tomorrow, the index will be lower 7 of the last 10 weeks. The S&P 500 is lower by 1% this week and both benchmarks remain below their 50 day SMAs. Looking at the Nasdaq a little deeper at their new 52 week highs versus new 52 week lows list explains why we continue to lean on the bearish side. For the last 3 sessions new 52 week lows have outnumbered new 52 week highs with Tuesdays tally at 38 highs/53 lows, Wednesday 25 highs/59 lows, and today 26 highs/37 lows. Some more retail earnings came in today to gauge the health of the consumer. KATE which has changed its name a couple times, normally a negative, fell 10% Thursday, and TUMI, the luxury travel designer fell 16%. Not getting much attention is the weakness in some of the medical names which includes a chunk of the strong healthcare group which has been doing some very heavy lifting recently. Names like CRL are down 17% from recent all time highs. SCMP a name we lost some money in recently, but stopped out at much higher prices, cratered 20% and is now off 30% from its own recent all time highs. Tip toeing through the land mines is required these days. Below is how SCMP was profiled in our Monday 4/20 Game Plan. It was entered at 20.56 and sold for a $1.10 loss at 19.46 and is a good reason why stocks are not to fall in love with.