Markets began the week on a timid note with benchmarks finishing up, albeit just marginally and off session highs. The Nasdaq rose .2% and the S&P 500 by .1% and breadth figures are not as benign as the indexes would suggest. For the second straight day decliners outpaced advancing names. The Nasdaq continues to be dominated by some of the four horseman with AAPL GOOGL FB and AMZN. Weekly gains last week for theses names included a 26% advance for GOOGL, AMZN by 9% and FB 8%. Monday FB tacked on another 3% Monday and looks poised to challenge the very round par figure this week. Delving deeper into the Nasdaq some sectors have been roughed up. The previously white hot cyber security groups undisputed leader PANW still looks stout, but secondary names like CYBR and FEYE have softened. Those name are 28 and 16% off recent all time highs. Today brought MSFT into the mix as it purchased Adallom, an Israeli security play, and last week saw a new issue RPD come public Friday and it lost 8.6% today. Materials and energy were the big losers Monday with both groups falling by more than 1%. Crude could be at an inflection point as it bounced off the round 50 handle, but the chart now sports an ugly flag pattern. You would be hard pressed to find many energy bulls out there and that may be their only bullet point. Expect lower prices in the near term. Resources like steel and copper, as measured by their ETFs SLX and JJC, are off 46 and 27% respectively. Historically speaking we would not be thinking of interest rate INCREASES in that environment.

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