AAPL saves the day for the NASDAQ as the stock broke out from a very long base, but it was the intraday volatility stealing the show. It wasn’t long after the open when sellers began to take it to the market. Perhaps it was Putin making threats, but sellers showed up knocking the market into negative territory. Miraculously the market found buyers and the NASDAQ launched back to the mid-point range of the session. Volume rose across the board and we can thank earnings for the boost in volume. We are still lacking the elusive follow-through day. Today would have been an easy day to follow-through, but just wasn’t in the cards.
The clear cut winners continue to be in the energy space. AAPL was a winner today, but FB failed to impress after earnings. GOOG continues to act in a lackluster manner. Energy is the place to be while technology and biotech continue to struggle around these levels. Anything is possible, but the continued chop intraday doesn’t spell confidence this market can push higher with any sort of momentum.
Sentiment continues to favor those who are neutral on the AAII Sentiment survey. 34% are bulls will bears dropped to 26%. II Bulls remain above 50%, but the number of bears are over the 20% mark. Pretty easy to see after the hit the NASDAQ took a few II respondents would get bearish. However, it remains quite low at 21.7%. The NAAIM exposure index ticked slightly higher, but interestingly enough a bearish bet showed up for the first time in a few weeks. It is clear sentiment remains bullish.
There are quite a few pundits thinking they have a clue where this market is heading next. What you see on Fast Money or Bloomberg or Fox News these pundits do not have a clue. Is there process systematic? Or can they change on a whim? If they do change, have they done the necessary scientific method to prove the change in methodology? Of course they do not tell you this. We follow a simple but effective strategy and that is to find leading stocks and ride them as long as we can.
Another weekend is upon us and we look forward to enjoying life. Have a great weekend.
