1. Moving the Markets
Stocks rallied late in the day, which pushed the S&P 500 to close a third straight day in positive territory and finish just short of its all-time high. The S&P 500 gained 0.3%, the Dow rose 0.4%, however, the Nasdaq fell from grace to close down 0.03%.
A large portion of headlines today focused on the Fed minutes and the back and forth speculation as to when the Fed will raise short-term interest rates. The general sentiment amongst economists is that rate increases are expected to begin some time in 2015. As we all know, the historically low interest rates have been a key driver for the five-year bull market we are in.
In earnings news, Lowe’s (LOW) reported a notable increase in Q2 profits that topped analyst estimates. However, the company also informed us that they lowered their 2014 earnings estimates moving forward. Shares dilly dallied back and forth, but ultimately gained 1.7% on the day.
PetSmart (PETM) rose 1% today, to $70.52 after the company said it was exploring a sale of the business. The pet supply retailer has recently been under pressure from activist investors to consider a deal or a major restructuring. I guess they are starting to listen.
7 of our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight closed up, while 3 of them made new yearly highs as the YTD table below shows.
2. ETFs in the Spotlight
In case you missed the announcement and description of this section, you can read it here again.
It features 10 broadly diversified ETFs from my HighVolume list as posted every Monday. Furthermore, they are screened for the lowest MaxDD% number meaning they have been showing better resistance to temporary sell offs than all others over the past year.
Here are the 10 candidates:
All of them are currently in “buy” mode, meaning their prices are above their respective long term trend lines by the percentage indicated (%M/A).
Year to date, here’s how the above candidates have fared so far:
To be clear, the first table above shows the position of the various ETFs in relation to their respective long term trend lines (%M/A), while the second one tracks their trailing sell stops in the “Off High” column. The “Action” column will signal a “Sell” once the -7.5% point is taken out in the “Off High” column.
3. Domestic Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)
Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) came off yesterday’s highs by a small margin:
Domestic TTI: +2.95% (last close +3.01%)
International TTI: +2.16% (last close +2.25%)
Disclosure: I am obliged to inform you that I, as well as advisory clients of mine, own some of these listed ETFs. Furthermore, they do not represent a specific investment recommendation for you, they merely show which ETFs from the universe I track are falling within the guidelines specified.
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