ChartSmarter Tuesday Game Plan 8/8/17

Markets were higher across the board, albeit modestly so, and refreshingly it was the Nasdaq that led advancing .5%. The tech heavy index did record a bullish harami cross Friday and today demonstrated decent follow through. The S&P 500 did manage to CLOSE above the 2480 level we mentioned in our Monday report and now it is time for that benchmark to show some lift off from these levels. There certainly is a lack of euphoria presently overall and that favors the bulls and for sure a pullback is looming, but no one can pinpoint that and this grind up could continue for years as price action is hard to ignore at the moment. It looks like we have yet to still see the melt up which could potentially foreshadow weakness. Looking at individual sectors Monday oddly enough it was the staples that led and the utilities that were the third best performer (technology was second best), and financials and energy lagged. We are all aware of the retail groups challenges and even with crude still at historically low levels one would have thought it would have behaved better. We spoke of the traditional retailers a bit last week, but some surprising weakness has been witnessed in the casual dining space. There will always be exceptions with the recent purchase of PNRA, but some other best of breed names have been acting poorly. Below is the chart of DRI and how it was profiled in our Monday 7/17 Game Plan. It now trades 12% off most recent all time highs and is on a rare 5 week losing streak, a feat you would have to go all the way back to the end of ’15 to see. Of course there have been some names that should have never come public like NDLS RT or KONA, and then you have former high flyers such as CAKE lower by 31% from recent 52 week highs and HABT and DIN off 31 and 56% from their own highs. Even JACK is on an 8 week losing streak but sown a more modest 16%, but that still is causing nausea for shareholders, pun intended. Invest prudently.