Picks of the Day, March 30,2017

Market Orientation About to Change

Stocks on Wall Street tiptoed around the zero line yesterday on the background of ongoing concern about President Trump’s growth-oriented agenda. At the same time, the energy sector soared in the wake of smaller than expected weekly crude reserve growth.

In the near future, the stock market is likely to retrain its focus from Capitol Hill and set its sights anew on firm earnings, on what is likely to be one of American firms’ best quarters vis a vis revenue and earnings growth in the last 5 and a half years.

The atmosphere on Wall Street among traders had turned slightly sour last week after the White House and Congress failed to push through their health care reform package. Market analysts, though, are saying that the market’s foundation is strong, which buys more time for Washington to execute the initiative investors really care about, i.e. tax reform!

The earnings season won’t begin until mid-April, but analysts are already rubbing their hands in anticipation of superb numbers. As of now, S&P 500 firm earnings are expected to record 10.4% growth, the strongest growth since Q3 2011, when growth numbers had come to 18%. Revenue growth is expected to soar by 7.1%, which would make it the strongest reading since the jump in that very same quarter in 2011, revenue having  skyrocketed then by 11.1%.

In summary for the day, the Dow Jones shed 0.2%, the S&P 500 tacking on 0.1%. The NASDAQ rose 0.4%. The Russell 2000 rose 0.3%, gold shedding 0.2% and crude jumping 2.4%.

The energy sector (XLE) led the sectors on the S&P 500 with gains of 1.2%. The latest sector news is that the preeminent Persian Gulf crude producers plan on extending their production cut despite losing market share, American producers simultaneously seizing the opportunity to ramp up production. Part of the market sentiment is that yesterday’s movement was prompted by a short squeeze considering the headwinds the sector is facing. That doesn’t mean, though, that crude can’t continue climbing higher and test the upper edge of the horizontal price channel.

One of the stocks standing out in yesterday’s trading was RH, which soared 15% on the heels of better than expected earnings results and strong guidance. VRTX soared 20.45% after the biotech company reported encouraging Phase III results in two studies assessing the effectiveness of its experimental Cystic Fibrosis drug. DNKN shed 2.1% on the background of a Goldman Sachs downgrade, the investment bank noting risk factors the likes of slowing unique visitor growth.

About 6.3 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, beneath the 7.1 billion average over the last 20 trading days.

On the S&P 500, 18 stocks rose to new 52-week highs, 4 dipping to new yearly lows; on the NASDAQ, 82 stocks recorded new 52-week highs, 33 falling to new yearly lows.

Thursday: Investors today will focus on initial weekly unemployment claims which will be released at 8:30 N.Y. time, as well as the last reading for Q4 2016 GDP at the very same hour.

Three Fed speakers are expected to speak today. William Dudley, N.Y. Fed Bank President, will be speaking at 16:30 N.Y. time, San Francisco Fed President, John William speaking at 11:00, with Robert Kaplan, head of the Dallas Fed, speaking at 15:00.

After Closing: Lululemon (LULU) collapsed 18% in late trading yesterday after the sports apparel company released weak guidance for this quarter, while also falling short of the consensus with its Q4 2016 earnings release.

Thursday’s Hot Stocks: LULU, COP, WOR

IPOs: ELVT, SNDR

Have a great trading day!

30.3.2017

Today’s Picks – Day Trading!

New York Strategy Swing

Today’s Picks – Swing “New-York Strategy

No.1 –    AFSI