Let’s Keep The Bulls Running

[Chart courtesy of MarketWatch.com]

1. Moving the Markets

The bulls continued charging forward this Thursday. The start to the year for stocks was a downer, but a February renaissance for stocks continued, as all three major indexes rocketed back into positive territory. Today, investors plowed money back into stocks following a slump the week before, encouraged by a 4% jump in the price of crude oil and Pfizer’s $16 billion deal to buy the drugmaker Hospira.

Drug giant Pfizer (PFE) said it would buy Hospira (HSP), a maker of injectable drugs, for $90 a share in cash. The deal is the first by Pfizer since it walked away from a merger with AstraZeneca last year.

Oil continued its climb today, moving up 4% to reestablish itself at the $50/barrel mark. This made well for energy stocks across the board.

In earnings news, Sprint (S) reported a loss during its Q3 of 2014, but the wireless carrier said it added nearly 1 million new customers during the same timeframe. Apparently, that was enough to send the stock up 5.2% to $4.82 on the day.

In the EuroZone, Greece’s new left-wing government is insisting it will stick to its anti-austerity agenda; hours after the European Central Bank tightened the screws on Athens by withdrawing a key borrowing option for the country’s banks. Greek stocks dropped 3% on the news.

All of our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight enjoyed the newly found upward momentum by closing higher with healthcare (XLV) leading the pack. 2 new highs were made and 9 are now positioned on the plus side YTD.

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:

The above table simply demonstrates the magnitude with which some of the ETFs are fluctuating in regards to their positions above or below their respective individual trend lines (%M/A). A break below, represented by a negative number, shows weakness, while a break above, represented by a positive percentage, shows strength.

For hundreds of ETF/Mutual fund choices, be sure to reference Thursday’s StatSheet.

Year to date, here’s how the above candidates have fared so far:

Again, 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 has been taken out in the “Off High” column.

3. Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)

Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) rallied with the major indexes and closed as follows:

Domestic TTI: +3.39% (last close +2.92%)—Buy signal since 10/22/2014

International TTI: +1.59% (last close +0.90%)—Sell signal effective 12/15/14

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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