S&P 500: Financials & Tech Lagging

Good morning, things are very quiet this morning. Yesterday overseas markets and futures were green in the early going as NATO chief Anders Rasmussen urged all parties to seek a political solution as soon as possible in Libya. The Japanese crisis appeared all but forgotten by traders.


On the economic front, Challenger reported that Planned Job Cuts fell by 18% during March and that the first quarter totals were the lowest since 1995. ADP reported that the private sector job market expanded again during the month of March. The report shows that private sector jobs rose by 201K jobs during the month, which was just below the consensus expectations for a gain of about 204K.

The midweek session began with a five point gap higher and continued a few more points upward before spending an hour in sideways consolidation. But from then until shortly after 1:00 pm when the highs were put on the chart it was all bulls. The afternoon was gentle decline but the absence of sellers held the market up near the highs until the final minutes when some moderate selling hit the tape. 


So checking under the hood we finally got good volume in advancing issues, and the NYSE out performed the SPX as well. On the negative side Tech and Financials were weak and if you look back to when this rally started last summer/fall NAZ100 lead the way. Keep an eye on that. Also I'm hearing that this rally was lead up by copper, and copper and S&P are parting ways so it maybe the canary in the coal mine. 


Looking inside the numbers we see in the S&P 371 components advancing and 106 components declining. On the NYSE 3,149 issues were traded with 2,226 advancing issues and 828 retreating issues, a ratio of 2.69 to one advancing. There were 263 new highs and 12 new lows. The five day moving average of New Highs is 167 while the five day moving average of New Lows is 12 and the ten day moving average of Net Advancing is 837. The Net Advancing data indicates a bullish trend.


Advancing volume was higher at a ratio of 3.33 to one. The closing TRIN was 0.85 and the final tick was 553. The five day average of TRIN is .93 and the ten day average of TRIN is 1.16. The NYSE Composite Index gained 0.85% today while the SPX gained 0.66%.

For the NYSE, relative to the previous 30 session average, volume was -13.25% below the average. Of the last 15 sessions 4 sessions ended with volume greater than the previous rolling 30 day average volume. Of the last 30 sessions, 20 sessions ended on a positive tick, 7 of last 10. For the SPX, the day's volume was 86.3% of the average daily volume for the last year. Volume was 89.4% of the last 10 day average and 111.4% of the previous day’s volume.

Total tick for the day was 237,000 and the average tick for the day was 153. There were 48 ticks greater than 600 and 3 ticks more extreme than -600. There were no ticks greater than 1000 and no ticks more extreme than -1000. The tick action suggests institutional accumulation.

Today's volume was heavier than Tuesday. Most significant intraday were spikes in volume with SPX up moves and a general decline in volume during the afternoon. Looking at the Breadth Indicators, things are not quite as bullish as yesterday. The New High/New Low ratios are showing some cracks and that may mean a pullback is coming. And as I mentioned yesterday we are right up against major resistance so this really isn't a good time to make new buys.