ChartSmarter Thursday Game Plan 12/24/15

Markets are apparently welcoming Santa, although it is a bit early as that historically starts tomorrow on Christmas Eve. One good thing about this week is that there will be no Friday since the last 2 were lower by 1.5 and 2.2% on the Nasdaq and 1.8 and 1.9% on the S&P 500. Going into Thursday the benchmarks are higher, with the Nasdaq higher by 2.5% and the S&P 500 showing leadership and outperforming up 2.9%. With this weeks gain the S&P 500 is now back to positive for the year and bulls may have been hoping for a negative year since back to back yearly losses are rare. The indexes followed crude’s cue as it was the winning sector today by a wide margin gaining almost 5% on surely was to some degree short covering after inventories were announced. The XLE has advanced better than 5% this week so far and appears for the moment to be finding triple bottom support at the 58-59 handle since August. Crude has plenty to deal with supply issues, but readings today in WSJ showed how trading the resource itself has become minimal as investors seem to prefer investing in currencies tied to exporting economies like Norway, Mexico, Russia and Canada. Even playing the bonds of some names in the group has become more appealing and that would certainly drag some liquidity out of the market accounting for even more volatility. Of course there are other factors like the greenback and the rising of interest rates would help the dollar and adversely affect oil. They way some high yielding plays are acting, one may not think rates are going to accelerate at a feverish pace. One name we continue to like which we profiled in our Thursday 12/17 Game Plan is CCI. It is now inching past a symmetrical triangle and it yields better than 5%. The name looks poised to hit all time highs and would not be surprised to see it hit par in the first couple months of ’16.