1. Moving the Markets
Stocks pulled back a tad on mixed corporate earnings and falling oil prices as the Dow slipped for a fourth straight day.
Oil prices continue to fall with no obvious reason as the price of West Texas Intermediate Oil, the U.S. benchmark, was down 1.96% to close at $41.10 a barrel. Oil prices are down for a sixth straight day and have fallen nearly 8% this summer.
On the earnings front, social-networking giant Facebook (FB) posted 59% quarterly revenue growth in a strong performance that drove shares up 1.8%. But a disappointing Ford Motor (F) earnings report dampened the mood as the Dearborn, Mich.-based automaker’s stock dropped 9.6% to $12.52. The company’s disappointing earnings report contrasted with a strong performance by General Motors (GM) earlier this week.
In other news, it seems that Dollar General (DG) is taking advantage of Walmart’s (WMT) castoffs to grow its massive fleet of stores. The company said Wednesday that it bought 41 former Walmart Express stores and plans to relocate 40 existing Dollar General stores (plus open one new store) to the new sites by October. Dollar shops have been a growing threat to big-box stores and grocers alike since winning over recession-strapped customers and starting to sell more food and perishables, the kinds of goods that drive frequent trips.
More earnings numbers are on deck for tomorrow, as well as key economic data on how our economy fared for the second quarter.
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.
Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)
Both of our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) were mixed with the Domestic one advancing while the International one declined.
Here’s how we ended up on 7/28/2016:
Domestic TTI: +3.04% (last close +2.87%)—Buy signal effective 4/4/2016
International TTI: +2.59% (last close +2.90%)—Buy signal effective 7/19/2016
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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