ChartSmarter Tuesday Game Plan 4/5/16

Markets spent the blink of an eye in positive territory Monday and finished near session lows. The Nasdaq fell .5% ending a 4 sessions winning streak but did CLOSE above its 200 day SMA and did record a bullish inside day in slow volume. The S&P 500 dropped .3% as oil weighed and that correlation did exist today to dampen the mood. AAPL did manage to outperform rising 1% and recouping its 200 day SMA. The stock did get above that secular long term line briefly for 2 sessions on 11/3-4/15, and you would have to go back to late July ’15 as the last time it was firmly above (AAPL undercut the 200 day SMA on 8/3/15 not long after a triple top was put in at the 133-134 level on 2/24, 4/28 and 7/20/15). Keep in mind the stock is the largest component of the Nasdaq making up almost 7% and if this name can gain some traction above the 200 day it could help the overall market significantly. Merger Monday lived up to its name with the rumored VA shopping last week and ALK was the winner except for its shareholders at least for today. ALK gave up 3.8%, but VA received a lofty premium of 42%. In the tech space RKUS will be acquired by BRCD and like the ALK VA deal BRCD lost 13.6% and RKUS rose more than 32%, just like mergers used to act back in the day. The only major S&P 500 sector to finish in the green today was healthcare and perhaps we are seeing a trend develop. The biotech ETF XBI rose 6.2% last week and it added another 1.3% today. Device and equipment plays have been propping up the group before the biotechs became sexy again as of late and below is the chart of EW and how it was presented in our Thursday 3/31 Game Plan.