ChartSmarter Thursday Game Plan 9/7/17

Markets put in a lukewarm day Wednesday with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq rising in the .3% neighborhood. The Nasdaq is now higher 6 of the last 7 sessions and the last 2 both CLOSED well off intraday lows. The tech rich benchmark could potentially be forming a handle on its cup base currently (keep in mind a handle takes 5 days to form to be legitimate and today marked day number two). The Dow recorded a bullish harami off a rising 50 day SMA today after last Friday bearish doji candle. Looking at individual groups energy was the clear winner for a second session in a row with the XLE advancing 1.7%. For the week headed into Thursday has risen 2.2% and trying to register a rare 3 week winning streak. The last 2 and this one so far have all CLOSED at the top of their weekly ranges, albeit volume has softened up with each successive week. Lagging were the utilities as the XLU was the only of the major S&P sectors to lose ground off by .5%. The safe haven gold play back off slightly today as the GLD fell .5%. But looking on its weekly chart one can see last weeks powerful break above a 3 week tight pattern jumping 2.7%, its best weekly gain in 15 months (the 3 weeks ending between 8/11-25 all CLOSED within just .49 of each other), remains intact. Technology at the end of the day is where we want to see leadership from and generals will tend to offer additional buy points as they move north. Below is an example of that and here is the chart of INTU and how it appeared in our Friday 7/7 Game Plan. Notice how it too filled in a nice gap, we wrote a piece on this strategy recently, and has now shaped a nice cup base trigger of 143.91. A break above the cup would achieve an all time high.