1. Moving The Markets
The U.S. markets started the week out with a bang. The S&P 500 (SPX) hit an all-time intraday high of nearly 1,859.00 and finishing up 0.6%. Gains were broad across the board, with nine of the ten S&P 500 sectors up on the day. The market seems to be gaining momentum as it follows in suit with the big winners of 2013 (Google, Netflix, Tesla, Facebook, Priceline). Also, sentiment has been bullishly responding to the abundance of M&A activity we have seen thus far. To add to the list, today we heard RF Micro Devices Inc agreed to buy TriQuint Semiconductor Inc for about $1.6 billion, and Men’s Wearhouse Inc raised its cash tender offer for rival men’s clothing retailer Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc to $63.50 per share from $57.50.
Chesapeake Energy (CHK), the second-largest natural gas producer in the U.S., was a big gainer today. The stock rose 2.63% after the company announced it is considering selling or spinning off its oilfield services unit, Chesapeake Oilfield Services.
The average U.S. price for a gallon of regular gasoline at the pump has climbed for 17 days in a row. This marks a total increase of about 15 cents a gallon and AAA predicts that prices are likely to continue to rise in the weeks ahead as we head towards refinery maintenance season. For your information, this is the largest price increase since mid-July and the longest streak of daily increases since last May.
As the week progresses, I am looking ahead to Thursday when Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will speak to the Senate Banking Committee in a semi-annual testimony about monetary policy. Yellen has been a champion of the U.S. economy thus far in 2014, stating on numerous occasions that emerging market volatility is not a big risk to the U.S. and that the U.S. should continue reducing its bond buying program.
Our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight all showed gains and now 5 of them have turned positive for the year.
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.
In other words, none of them ever triggered their 7.5% sell stop level during this time period, which included a variety of severe market pullbacks but no move into outright bear market territory.
Here are the 10 candidates:
All of them are 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.
3. Domestic Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs)
Our Trend Tracking Indexes (TTIs) followed the indexes higher and started the week on a positive note:
Domestic TTI: +3.79% (last close +3.45%)
International TTI: +6.58% (last close +6.12%)
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