Today was a lackluster start to the week with small cap stocks lagging the broader market while the NASDAQ 100 pushed higher carrying the rest of the NASDAQ with it. Volume was higher across the board as the S&P 500 and Dow notch a day of distribution. Crude oil sank on the day as the commodity fell 2 points and was trading with a $51 handle. It is nice to see the commodity move away from its high. Internally, we had a quite a few stops hit and given the lackluster nature of the market we will certainly tread lightly. Let’s not forget the bullish nature of sentiment. Continue to work the process and stress the importance of sound money management principles. When you try and become a hero it will only lead to disastrous results.
Friday’s job report was unimpressive to say the least. While we did see the prior month’s job figures revised higher we simply are not seeing massive job gains. Blame whoever you want, but the trend is clear and we would expect tepid job gains to continue. What happens after the next recession? Will automation completely destroy job creation? Time will tell, but the trend is certainly there where we will continue to see automation and robots take over jobs humans would normally occupy. Hey, at least we can trade it as more and more companies turn to automation we will certainly see them show up in our scans.
Healthcare sector was the leading sector in the S&P 500 today. Biotech and Life Sciences were the biggest sub-sector gains, but not too far behind were Health Care Equipment and Services. It does help when you have ARIA and WOOF taken out at big multiples. We should see some signals out of these groups if this trend is going to last.
AA kicks off earnings season once again. What an exciting time! Make sure you pay attention to when your stocks report earnings. Always important as there is no telling, no edge we can obtain when a company reports earnings.
Stick with the plan and keep grinding.
