ChartSmarter Monday Game Plan 6/5/17

Markets put in another productive, holiday shortened week with the Nasdaq showing the way Friday jumping .9% and for the week outperformed the S&P 500 rising 1.5% to the S&P 500’s 1%. The tech rich benchmark has risen 9 of the last 11 sessions and is higher 6 of the last 7 weeks. On a YTD basis the Nasdaq is in firm command having zero down months in 2017 thus far and has added 17.1% in comparison to the S&P 500 gaining 9%. The small cap Russell 2000 powered higher by 2.7% the last 2 days of the week reclaiming its 50 day SMA in the process. Looking at how individual sectors acted for the week there was some noticeable bifurcation. Only two of the major S&P sectors retreated and they were the financials and energy with each off by .7 and 2.3% respectively. Healthcare was the big winner on the week with the XLV added slightly more than 2% hitting all time highs and below is the chart of STE and how it appeared in our Friday 5/26 Game Plan. The stock hit an all time high this Friday breaking above a long 18 month cup base trigger, although it did encounter some trouble at the round 80 number recording a bearish shooting star there to end the week. Glancing at a larger time frame we see just how well the defensive groups have behaved with the two best actors being the utilities and staples higher by 5.5 and 4.9% demonstrating the breadth of this ongoing rally. I have been hearing a lot of chatter about how the market would be deterred from moving north because the financials have not participated. One would have to just simply add look how well the indexes have performed without them thus far.