Markets displayed some muscle on Wednesday with benchmarks erasing somewhat sizable early morning losses to CLOSE near session highs. The Nasdaq at its depths this morning were almost identical to the gains it finished with rising .7%. The tech heavy index both sessions this week traded intraday below its 50 and 200 day SMAs but refused to CLOSE underneath and today recorded a bullish engulfing candle. The S&P 500 added .5% and finished just below the very round 2100 figure. Never has a round number been so worn out and it does still have to contend with last Fridays spinning top candle which often indicates exhaustion of a prior move and the bearish harami cross on 6/9. The indexes shrugged off European weakness and perhaps their struggles are our strength. In a perverse way the worse they do could be a blessing for the domestic averages as capital needs to be parked somewhere as many institutions mandate that assets be put to work. I never heard of the phrase when Europe sneezes, America catches a cold. Leading the way once again today were the healthcare names and we have a bevy of them in tonights Game Plan as rotation seems to be underway and ongoing. The XLV gained more than 1% today, the only major S&P sector to do so. Staples and utilities were the laggards although both the XLU and XLP rose marginally. The day had a risk on flavor and the financials once again could not get out of their own way. Looking deep into the sector one can find some hidden gems like VNTV which we profiled in our Thursday 6/16 Game Plan. It was highlighted for a purchase just above the round 50 number (trigger was never hit) and now rests just under a 58.19 cup base trigger. A breakout would be an all time high.
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