S&P Recap and A Look Inside the Markets

The S&P futures are up slightly this morning, Oil is down and there really isn't much in the way of news as yet. Yesterday there were conflicting reports this morning about the situation in Libya. The word was that Qaddafi had offered to negotiate stepping down in return for a guarantee of safe passage out of the country. However, the opposition rejected talks. This led Qaddafi forces to again use air strikes against the rebels. Also on the oil front, there were reports that some OPEC members are working to increase oil production. Germany's Industrial Orders rose in January and the NFIB Small Business Optimism index gained ground again here in the U.S. But futures were well below their overnight highs as the open approached.

The session began without much of a gap, moved upward for a couple minutes, then quickly reversed and sold off six points to put the low of the day on the chart at 9:47. Then bulls took over and by noon they had run the index up almost eighteen points putting the high of the day on the chart at 12:02 pm. The afternoon hours saw a gentle decline on light volume before finishing at about 80% of the intraday range. Remember that key level, as i mentioned before I don't think we take that out before we make a new low around or slightly below the 50dma. I had also written that the technical indicators were signaling a two day rally, so I will take on a new short position at or close to that 1333-1332 level. 

For the SPX Index there were 395 components advancing and 85 components declining. On the NYSE 3,142 issues were traded with 2,312 advancing issues and 741 retreating issues, a ratio of 3.12 to one advancing. There were 149 new highs and 10 new lows. The five day moving average of New Highs is 149 while the five day moving average of New Lows is 14 and the ten day moving average of Net Advancing is 253. The Net Advancing data indicates a bullish trend.Intraday volume was high during the morning rally and declined all afternoon as the market softened. 


Total tick for the day was 357,000 and the average tick for the day was 231. There were 234 ticks greater than 600 and 38 ticks more extreme than -600. There were 22 ticks greater than 1000 and no ticks more extreme than -1000. The tick action suggests institutional accumulation.
Breadth was strong and the ten day average of Net Advancing wasted no time in getting back into bullish territory. But the SPX outperformed the broader NYSE Composite Index today and that might suggest that the SPX over reached.

Sectors stronger than the SPX for Tuesday:
- Basic Materials -- Outperformed the SPX by +22%.
- Financials -- Outperformed the SPX by +129%.
- Industrials -- Outperformed the SPX by +56%.
- Utilities -- Outperformed the SPX by +23%.

Sectors weaker than the SPX for Tuesday:
- Energy -- Underperformed the SPX by -172%.
- Technology -- Underperformed the SPX by -6%.
- Consumer Staples -- Underperformed the SPX by -8%.
- Health Care -- Underperformed the SPX by -35%.
- Consumer Discretionary -- Underperformed the SPX by -9%.