1. Moving the Markets
U.S. stocks closed with mixed results on the day amid corporate earnings and economic data. In earnings news, EOG Resources (EOG) declined after reporting earnings that missed analyst’s estimates, while Priceline (PCLN) closed up over 8% after posting better-than-expected earnings for its fourth quarter.
As part of the good economic news today, apparently Americans are getting more jobs. We received a big drop in unemployment numbers. The number of unemployment claims last week (seasonally adjusted) was 283,000, which was a drop of 21,000 from the previous week’s estimate.
In tech/auto news, it seems that Apple (AAPL) may be legitimately interested in the auto market. There has been much speculation of recent that Tesla has poached more than a few employees from Apple for various engineering designs. The thing to remember is that, traditionally, when Apple has made an acquisition it is typically around the ceiling of $500 million, and the rumored asking price for a Tesla acquisition is $75 billion. Quite a difference in protocol!
2 our 10 ETFs in the Spotlight managed to squeeze out some gains and managed to make new yearly highs in the process, as section 2 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:
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) budged only slightly and closed as follows:
Domestic TTI: +3.70% (last close +3.74%)—Buy signal effective 10/22/2014
International TTI: +3.15% (last close +3.12%)—Buy signal effective 2/13/2015
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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