Markets reacted well in the face of the horrible attacks in Europe this morning. A mild late session sell off left the Nasdaq higher by .3% and the S&P 500 down .1%. Healthcare outperformed for a third consecutive session as the best acting major S&P sector, and the only other group to finish in the green was technology. It would be very nice to see tech continue to behave bullishly, perhaps oil is handing the leadership baton over after doing much of the heavy lifting recently. Small caps are always worth keeping an eye on as they will often lead their bigger benchmarks on the up and downside and they can give clues as to the direction of the greenback (most small companies are immune to the US Dollar fluctuations as they do the vast majority of their business domestically). Below we look at the chart of the IWM which is now having difficulty getting above the round 110 figure. That is the 61.8% retracement of the highs made late last year and it is where the ETF found good support on a weekly basis, with no CLOSES below the weeks ending 8/28 and 10/2/15. Is former support now going to become resistance? A move above 110 would put a long term double bottom pattern in play with a 120.17 pivot point. More concerns about the consumer seem to pop up on a daily basis and today that was brought courtesy of GIII which slumped almost 20% after an ill received earnings call.
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