ChartSmarter Tuesday Game Plan 4/25/17

Markets started the week with a bang Monday as the Nasdaq jumped 1.2% and the S&P 500 rose by 1.1% and the Russell 2000 sprinted higher by 1.3%. The action was attributed to the French election over the weekend, and as one would prefer to see this type of move by something other than that the PRICE action must be respected. It is rare for an index to record a gap up but today the Nasdaq registered its 5th of 2017 already, and now stands just below the very round 6000 figure. The Nasdaq hit an all time high and the S&P 500 recouped its 50 day SMA. It was obviously a big positive for the benchmark to recapture its 50 day SMA, but there is still work to do as one wants to see that line hold for the rest of the week for starters. There was a risk on flavor today with the financials showing strength with the XLF the best actor advancing 2.2%. The ETF is still underneath its 50 day SMA and has work to do as it potentially looks to be forming the right clavicle in a bearish head and shoulders formation if it is unable to clear the important moving average. Other sectors gaining at least 1% included the industrials, technology, materials and healthcare. Utilities lagged by the XLU still added more than .5%. We did see some M&A activity in the healthcare group with BDX acquiring BCR and some of the names in that group were soft today. That may offer an opportunity in the near future to receive a nice entry on select names. Below is the chart of MDXG and how it appeared in our Monday 4/17 Game Plan. Today it recorded a bearish shooting star at almost 2 year highs, but on a longer term timeframe it is on a current 8 week winning streak. Put you alert in.