ChartSmarter Wednesday Game Plan 8/30/17

Markets shrugged off some early weakness Tuesday as the Nasdaq led the way and the more that continues investors could be confident that the worst could be behind them. The Nasdaq added .3% after being lower by .8% in the mid morning hours. Bears could point to the lack of volume that accompanied the turnaround, but again PRICE action is omnipotent. With all the hoopla August brings the month will be over Thursday and with the Nasdaq there has been just 4 sessions so far this month that moved up or down by more than 1% and it stands lower by roughly 1% month to date so far. It did CLOSE above the 50 day SMA Tuesday. There does seem to be a tug of war going on with the major indexes with their 50 day SMAs and the Dow managed to bounce off that important line for the second time in seven days. The Russell 2000 was able to finish above its 200 day SMA, recording a bullish hammer int he process, and is on a 4 day winning streak and is making a habit of bullishly CLOSING in the upper half of its daily range. Looking at individual sectors it was encouraging to see the industrials and technology leading the way with the XLI and XLK higher by .7 and .4% respectively. Gold put in an interesting candle Tuesday as the GLD recorded a bearish counterattack candle. The PEP chart suggests that cautious names may be losing their luster as the name is lower 7 of the last 9 sessions. Getting back to the risk on inspired move today the semiconductors are starting to act better. Below is the chart of XLNX and how it appeared in our Wednesday 8/23 Game Plan. Notice how a “cluster of evidence” occurred with the stock as it bounced off its 200 day SMA, the 60 number all while filling in a gap from 4/26. It now enjoys a 7 day winning streak and has gained more than 4 handles since the look.