The focus was on the ECB and its plan to begin a quantitative easing program. Never mind the 45.5% increase in planned layoffs by US companies the market cheered the news of continued central bank support of stocks. Initial jobless claims ticked higher than expected, but it wasn’t a large miss. Volume expanded on the day and above average as institutions decided to jump into the market ahead of tomorrow’s jobs report. The top three sectors in the S&P 500 were Industrials, Financials, and Technology. Not too far behind were Utility stocks. It appears now the Russell 2000 and NASDAQ Composite will try and play catch up with the Dow and S&P 500. As we head into the May jobs report this market is certainly looking to continue to push higher.
It is Thursday and today we take a look at sentiment indicators from various providers. We continue to see extreme bullish readings from the II survey with more than 60% of respondents are bullish while bears remain under 20%. AAII Bulls moved higher to 39.51% while bears fell to 22.22%. The AAII Survey has yet to reach extreme levels just yet, but Bears are awfully close. NAAIM exposure index hit 90% as the bearish bets we saw last week were taken off in favor of bullish bets. The biggest bullish bet was 200%. It may take extremes we have never seen before prior to any top showing up.
Volume certainly came into the market and it came into the NASDAQ. NYSE volume was higher, but it was only modestly higher. We can debate the finer points, but it really isn’t worth debating. NASDAQ volume was drastically higher day-over-day and it was quite noticeable. The only issue was volume was not above average on the NASDAQ despite having a big move day-over-day. A solid day for sure, but it could have been much better. Price matters and it continue to push higher.
If the ECB does go ahead with collateralizing assets to buy them it will be interesting to see how markets will react. For the moment, many European markets are in uptrends and have yet to look like they are about to give up on moving higher. At the time the ECB will usher in its QE and the US is ending ours will certainly be entertaining to say the least.
Tomorrow’s jobs report will be fun to see how the market reacts from a bystander standpoint. The unemployment rate will likely dominate the headlines as the Federal Reserve has pinned itself to it. We’ll be in the chat room enjoying the view and finding opportunities to take advantage of. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Go enjoy it.
