ChartSmarter Friday Game Plan 7/17/15

Markets scored nice gains Thursday with the Nasdaq once again showing why its the leader higher by 1.3%. The S&P 500 scored a nice .8% advance as well. Heading into Friday the Nasdaq is up a very impressive 3.3% for the week and the S&P 500 by 2.3%. Thursday saw the consumer staple ETF score a new high and one can interpret that in one of two ways. Is it indicating broad market strength or should one be concerned about the defensive nature of the fund? At the end of the day we focus purely on price action so it does not matter the translation. The ETF is looking for only its second weekly CLOSE above the round 50 number, the prior occasion being the week ending 2/27 which finished above by a mere penny. Utilities were the top performing group Thursday “buzzing” higher by 1.2%. For the group to be performing this well in the face of possible interest rate increases is saying something. Below is how we presented one of our favorites in the group, SCG, in our 6/11 Game Plan. We are big proponents of the round number theory and this name was finding bids at the 50 handle. One can now add to or initiate a position above the 200 day SMA at 54.60. Alarming were some leaders that reported earnings today and slumped, most notably SHW. It cratered by more than 20 handles and bounced almost precisely off the round 250 handle. Weekly volume is on pace to be the largest in years.