ChartSmarter Monday Game Plan 8/10/15

Stocks staged a modest afternoon rally to finish off session lows of nearly 1% for the Nasdaq, but the overall week has to be viewed in a negative light even by the optimist. The Nasdaq fell 1.6% for the week after an ugly slice of its 50 day SMA on Thursday. Bulls will maintain it did bounce off the very round 5000 handle. The S&P 500 dropped 1.2% for the week and intraday Friday was below its 200 day SMA before CLOSING above it. We had mentioned recently that we were concerned with the S&P 500’s outperformance lately, as a healthy Nasdaq is generally regarded as bullish. It has now been outdone on a weekly basis for 3 consecutive weeks now by the S&P 500 and is something to monitor going forward. On a YTD basis the Nasdaq is still well in front with a gain of 6.5% compared to the S&P 500’s .9% advance thus far in 2015. There has been some casual diners in the news this week with the GS upgrade of MCD. Perhaps they were looking to a mature play with the overall market looking more fragile and a nice dividend yield is appetizing. Less palatable has been a former best of breed name that was a favorite of mine. JACK this week put up its second consecutive poorly received earnings reaction. It fell 6.2% on on Thursday after a 4.3% drop on 5/14. It is concerning since it was a serial beater with gains the prior 3 times jumping 7.4, 4.8 and 10.5% on 2/18, 11/19 and 8/7. The round numbers came into play here as well as we were watching for a possible move above a 100.09 cup base trigger. It was stopped at 99.99 on 3/25. Perhaps one can feel better that Thursday and Friday it CLOSED above the round 90 handle. Indigestion with HABT lower by almost a fifth this week. Puns galore.