After a shaky start to the morning buyers flooded the NASDAQ after Monday’s lackluster close. No surprise volume was higher after Monday’s shortened session. The biggest newsworthy story was the release of the latest Federal Reserve meeting minutes. Not a huge market mover, but we did get some insight into how the central bank views inflation and the size of their balance sheet. The NASDAQ went on to set a new high 30 minutes after the release, but failed to maintain the highs of the session. Small caps did struggle a bit on the session along with the Dow Jones Industrial average. Aside from stocks crude oil struggled today finished down more than 4% on the session closing just above $45 a barrel. The commodity remains in a downtrend and has yet to break its trend. Not a bad session by any stretch, but the NASDAQ has more work to do.

The only major market index below its 50 day moving average is the NASDAQ. For a brief moment the index was able to eclipse the moving average, but was unable to close above it. S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial average both remain above their respective 50 day moving averages. They both are maintaining their uptrends. Keeping an eye on this key moving average will be something we do over the next few sessions.

For obvious reasons energy was the worst performing sector in the S&P 500 today. Real Estate was not too far behind. On the positive side Information Technology was the leading sector as the NASDAQ 100 was leading the entire market higher. Healthcare, Industrials, and Financials were the only other 3 sectors in the S&P 500 in green territory today.

This holiday shortened week has already flown by and we hope your trading is going smoothly this week. We continue to focus on our signals and ignoring the noise spewing from Wall Street. We do not care this market is overvalued, oversold, or any other mantra there is. We care about price and price only. We do remain in a precarious market, but with our risk management process we are confident we will handle anything this market will throw at us.

Good luck in your trading Thursday!