Market Zips Higher!

Picks of the Day January 10, 2018.

Market Zips Higher!

The large indexes on Wall Street extended this year’s rally, closing at new highs again on Tuesday – against the backdrop of investor optimism, the Q4 earnings season, also, right around the corner.

Utility, telecom and real estate stocks haven’t made in onto investors’ shopping list. Bank stocks, in turn, rallied, especially after 10-year T-bonds saw an uptick. Health stocks rose, the sector in focus today for the second day in a row with J.P. Morgan holding its key biotech conference.

The financial sector (XLF) ending up 0.8%, after yields on U.S. government 10-year T-bonds rose to a 10-month high on the heels of an announcement from the Bank of Japan that it would be cutting its purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds. The sectors sensitive to interest rates like utilities (XLU) and real estate (IYR) recorded losses of 1%.

The health sector (XLV) rallied 1%, aided by a rise of 1.6% from JNJ, 5% from GILD, and 8.3% from BSX.

The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ recorded their sixth consecutive closing highs. The Dow Jones also ended at a new high, though had cut its winning streak after slight losses on Monday.

Daily Summary: The Dow Jones rose 0.41%, the S&P 500 tacking on 0.13%. The NASDAQ closed slightly up by 0.09%.

Intel (INTC) dragged chip stocks down. The semiconductor sector (SMH) ended off 0.3%. INTC fell 2.5% after Microsoft (MSFT) announced that computers with old Intel chips had slowed significantly after the latest security update patch.

On the S&P 500, 124 stocks rose to new 52-week highs, 3 dipping to new yearly lows; on the NASDAQ, 131 stocks recorded new 52-week highs, 24 falling to new yearly lows.

About 6.77 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, compared to the 6.3 billion average over the last 20 trading days.

Wednesday: The more January progresses, things seem to be getting better and better for stocks. This was the first time since 1964 that the S&P 500 recorded a 6-day winning streak. For the NASDAQ, the last time the market kicked off with 6 winning days was 1999. The S&P 500 ended up 13% in 1964 and the NASDAQ saw a meteoric rise of 85% since 1999.

The fact that the first 5 trading days of the year were up was already a good sing. When we see gains of 2% or more on the first 5 trading days of the year, the year as a whole, historically, traded up on 15 of 15 occasions. The average gains in this sample size of 15 was 18.6%!

The statistics here teach us that when things are on fire, it could be that they’re just warming up! The fact that we’re seeing such strength going into this year only strengthens the notion that the bull market is still alive and well – and presumably, there are a lot more positives than negatives in the market.

Wednesday brings with it a number of financial reports, including KBH, SVU and PRGS. On the economic front, import and export prices will be released at 8:30 N.Y. time. Wholesale trade numbers will be released at 10:00. Crude inventories will be released at 10:30.

Today’s Hot Stocks: JWN, UAL, WDFC, SIG, LEN

IPOs: None

Have a great trading day!

Today’s Picks – Day Trading!

New York Strategy Swing

 Today’s Picks – Swing “New-York Strategy”

No.1 – GPS