ChartSmarter Friday Game Plan 8/14/15

Markets overcame very mild weakness Thursday, went positive with the Nasdaq gaining more than .5%, only to sell off late in the session. Both benchmarks met resistance at their 50 day SMAs today. The Nasdaq lost .2% and the S&P 500 .1%. Both indexes finished near their highs for the session for a second consecutive session. Heading into Friday the S&P 500 is up .3% for the week while the Nasdaq has declined .1%. If those figures hold tomorrow it would mark the fourth consecutive week that the S&P 500 outperforms the Nasdaq on a weekly basis. Perhaps energy is helping that statistic although its drop this year has made the sector less relevant and does not carry as heavy a weighting. It was the worst performing group Thursday. The consumer discretionary led the way with a gain of .6%, the only of the major 10 S&P groups to finish up for the day. The top 6 holdings in the XLY, AMZN DIS HD CMCSA MCD SBUX were all up better than .5% Thursday. MCD is a name GS has been fond of putting it on its conviction buy list. It is currently battling with the round par figure, a spot where many names like to digest for either a nice push higher or a retreat. Three separate occasions this year it has traded pennies above the 101 level on 3/2, 5/19 and and 7/31. On 7/31 MCD came close to taking out a 101.18 double bottom trigger but recorded a bearish hanging man candle. The intraday high that day is now a double bottom with handle pivot point of 101.20. Below is the chart how it appeared in our Monday Game Plan this week.