ChartSmarter Tuesday Game Plan 2/7/17

Markets put in another listless session with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 finishing down .1% and .2% respectively. One benchmark that has been relatively volatile on almost a daily basis is the Russell 2000 and it slipped up .8%. The small cap, domestic average is flirting with falling underneath its 50 day SMA and has made 4 lower highs since completing a bearish evening star pattern on 12/12/16. The Nasdaq did record a spinning top candle Monday at all time highs and is currently about 170 handles above its upward sloping 50 day SMA, however in recent months the candlesticks have been much more accurate forecasting bottoms than tops in individual names and indexes. The day was most likely a bit weaker than it looked with just two of the major S&P sectors advancing Monday and and they were just fractional moves by the industrials and technology which both rose less than .1%. The lagging groups today were the financials and energy with the latter falling almost double what the finnies fell by. The XLE dropped by .8% and the 72 level does look critical as last Tuesday and Thursday found support there registering bullish doji and hammers. Gold had a standout session with the GLD advancing 1.3% and below is the chart of NEM and how it was presented in our Friday 2/3 Game Plan. It managed to push above its 200 day SMA today and it did so as well on 1/5 for a single session before retreating back below. Is this time for real? To its credit it did pierce a bullish inverse head and shoulders formation to the upside and is now in the process of building the right side of a deep cup base that began during last summer of the week ending 8/12/16. Notice how the round 30 number found a floor at the bottom of the pattern the week ending 11/18/16.