ChartSmarter Thursday Game Plan 3/30/17

Markets continue to attempt to take back any technical damage from last Tuesday and the Nasdaq led the way Wednesday as it rose .4% and is now on a 4 session winning streak. On the weekly chart the tech heavy benchmark has the chance to record a bullish engulfing candle and the pattern also has the look of a bull flag. The S&P 500 is healing as well off its rising 50 day SMA and its a bit to early but a double bottom base looks to be shaping up, although technically they need to be 5 weeks in duration to be legitimate. The Russell 2000 is now on a 5 session winning streak and is now at a critical juncture just underneath its 50 day SMA, which has been flatlining and has every right too after its recent huge run. The soft energy group was the best performer today with the XLE following through off Tuesdays bullish morning star formation. and rose 1.4%. The financials which were the best actors Tuesday, flipped the script today and were the worst behaved with the XLF falling .7%. The ETF is trying to shake off a 3 week losing streak which lost almost a combined 6% and as of todays CLOSE has the look of a bullish weekly counterattack candle, but obviously we still have 2 sessions to go. If one wants to paint a bearish picture, I am not in that camp as we reside very bear all time highs, they can look to the paper packaging plays. Names like UFS are lower by 18% from most recent 52 week highs and off 6 of the last 7 weeks and 2.6% this week so far. The 800lb gorilla in the space IP is 14% off its most recent highs and below is the chart exactly how it appeared in our Wednesday 3/29 Game Plan. It is flirting with the very round 50 number and does offer good risk/reward down here. There has been no shortage off IPOs this year either, although in the tech space there has been some softness and when browsing through charts last night noticed the recent software IPO brought public by Goldman Sachs, APTI which is lower 12 of the last 13 weeks and 52% off recent highs, when markets have been traded almost the opposite. At the expense of sounding cliche, this is and always will be a stock pickers market. Trade accordingly.