ChartSmarter Friday Game Plan 4/11/14

Markets were slammed Thursday and the Nasdaq was the one taking the worst blows. It fell more than 3% today, and it was the second triple digit drop in 5 days for the tech benchmark. Going into Friday for the week it is lower by 1.8% almost assuring a third consecutive weekly loss. Remember as we mentioned earlier this week the last time that occurred was during a 6 week in a row slide between the weeks ending 10/12/12-11/16/12. During that stretch the index lost 9% and undercut its 200 day SMA. Will history repeat itself? Another day like today and it will challenge its 200 day at 3933. The S&P 500 sliced its 50 day SMA Thursday and fell 2.1%. The last time it did that was on 1/24 when it fell by precisely the same 2.09%. For the week it has declined by 1.7%. All three of the big benchmarks are now negative on a YTD basis. Looking at the Dow, which we rarely do, it is the best performer this week with “only” a loss of 1.5%. It is the only one of the big three that still remains above its 50 day SMA. It closed right at it Thursday. Curiously it was the best performer today losing 1.6%. This is a clear indication of risk continuing to be extracted from the capital markets.