Daily Market Wisdom with Nick Santiago

1. Quiet friday, markets are up. Volume light. They’re all in the Hamptons now. End of August. Last Friday. Labor is on 9-7-20. End of the week. Markets are up. Broad based move overall. Weakness in biotech and select names. Financials are not required to move the markets, but it would help. Markets have rallied up without the financials. JP Morgan at $102, up way up from low but no longer near it...

1. Jay Powell gave his virtual Jackson Hole speech. He will remain accomodative and he will keep the pedal to the metal at this point until further notice. They’re saying they’ll let inflation run over 2%. Markets seem to like it. Futures moved higher and so did bond yields. Yields have bottomed and are up 4.5 basis today and will probably work their way higher. We could see 1.5% yields. It will h...

1. Last night after the closing bell, Salesforce.com reported block buster earnings. The stock is trading higher by 26% today. This is the stock that is being added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), so that is positive for the DJIA going forward. This move is also helping a lot of the other leading cloud stocks today. Back in the day it was the railroad average. Now there’s everything, t...

1. There was a reshuffling announced in the Dow Jones Industrial Average last night. It looks as if Salesforce.com (CRM) will replace Exxon Mobil (XOM), Amgen (AMGN) will replace Pfizer (PFE), and Honeywell (HON) will replace Raytheon Technologies (RTX) in the DJIA 30. This news is giving these news additions to the DJIA a lift this morning. The official date for the change will be on Monday, Augu...

1. The markets are starting the session higher across the board on this Monday. If it follows the current pattern there will simply be a lot of backing and filling for the rest of the week. Traders and investors should note that the rally that began on March 23rd is now 5 months old. While the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 Index have made new highs the Russell 2000 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ha...

1. Options ex and the quiet period is here. Game Playing is done and next week we get back to real business. 2. Gold Silver making their ABC move. One more move down. It has to do it. The cause is irrelevant. It’s a footprint human nature. How long will it last. Put in a top on 8-7. Not easy to figure out. The 8-12 low would be a great point to re-enter. A matter of days or weeks at most. Longer t...

1. Weekly claims up 1.1. Continuing claims 14.8 million, down 500k from last week. A little weaker than expected. A little bit of set back. Markets taking it in stride. 2. Markets are down except for the Nasdaq. It’s continuing its leadership. Some stocks keep going up, like Apple, reacting to its split. All the big names are higher today. The trend is still up. 3. Gold and silver slammed yesterda...

1. Retail stocks have been in focus this week. Target and Lowes earnings released. Target reaction was pretty good. Lowes up $2. Big box retailers are doing well and money is flowing into them. TJX is down $4. Stock is getting hit hard today 2. Markets today are up across the board. Nasdaq not so much, but it’s had a big run this week. Russell 2000 is strong. Could mean money flowing into other se...

1. Retail stocks are trading lower today after Walmart (WMT), Home Depot (HD  and Kohls (KSS) reported earnings. Kohls (KSS) is trading down by 13.0% and this seems to be putting pressure on stocks like Macys (M), Dillards (DDS) and Nordstrom (JWN). We have more leading retail stocks reporting this week. Lowes (LOW) and Target (TGT) report tomorrow morning before the opening bell. 2. As I have sai...

1. Options expiration is this Friday. That means that this trading week will be filled with lots of institutional game playing. We see this every month around the monthly expiration. Traders and investors should watch for ridiculous up-grades and down-grades by many of the big firms. There will also be a few take-over rumors, mostly untrue. Then you will often get lots of crazy news that is unexpe...

1. Typical summer Friday. Spydrs were low. Flat day. Market held up well for the week. Not a bad week. Let’s see some backing and filling. S&P is now challenging February top. When you go up into a high pivot, you want to see it consolidate and go higher. S&P could see a new high. Nasdaq is up 20% for the year. VIX has been going down, it’s a spike indicator but won’t hang around for long. March w...

1. Everyone is talking about the Initial Weekly Claims number coming in at 963K.  The initial claims for the week ending August 8 decreased by 228,000, which is showing improvement. More importantly, the number finally came in under the psychological 1 million mark.  2. Technology is the strong horse today. The NASDAQ Composite is trading higher again after a 3-day sell off which concluded on Mond...

1. Yesterday, there was a late day sell off after Joe Biden announced that he picked his vice president running mate. The market sold off immediately afterward the announcement even though he did not reveal who he chose. Later after the market closed, we heard that Biden chose Kamala Harris. I think the market had already figured this out and today we are back to normal.  2. Today, the NASDAQ Comp...

1. The rotation out of tech keeps taking place. In my opinion this is a positive for market as other industry groups are seeing money. The transports, financials, and energy sectors are an excellent example of capital flowing into these groups. When the market broadens out it is a positive as opposed to just a small group of tech stocks leading the markets higher. Nick never likes to see the Dow l...

1. Nasdaq is down and it looks like more money is fleeing technology, specifically cloud softwares stocks, and going into other areas of the market. The cloud stocks and even some leading tech stocks have been severely overbought for a while now, so this looks like a healthy rotation for the markets. Some areas that are strong today include small caps (IWM), Transports (IYT) and even some industri...

1. The non-farm payroll report was released at 8:30 am ET, it showed a gain of 1.763 million.  The unemployment rate moved lower to 10.2% from 11.1% in June. So overall, this is showing an improvement, but it is still a long way from where it was in February. 2. There are lots of geopolitical events going on right now, so that creates some added risk in the market. Last night, President Trump sign...

1. The Weekly Initial Claims number was 1.186 million vs. 1.40 million. This is a  decrease of 249,000 from last week, so that is better. The continuing claims for the week ending July 25 decreased by 844,000 to 16.107 million. Tomorrow, the BLS will report the non-farm payroll report numbers at 8:30 am ET.  2. Today, we are seeing a lot of the popular tech stocks coming under early distribution....

1. July ADP Employment Change 167K vs 1.6 million, but the prior month's number was revised to 4.314 million from 2.369 million. This Friday we will get the non-farm payroll report from the BLS. All I care about is the reaction from the market and not really the number that is reported.    2. Earnings season is underway, Some stocks are going higher and others are moving lower. Remember, it's all...

1. After yesterday's rally we are seeing some backing and filling this morning. This has been a typical pattern over the past few months. The trend is still up in the market and that is really all that matters right now. Everytime we’re up on a Monday, nothing much happens the rest of the week. 2. Earnings season is still underway. Even though the mega cap tech stocks such as MSFT, AMZN, FB, GOOG...

1. Markets up across the board. Nasdaq up 1.2% The Monday Rally seems to have become a pattern. 2. Silver and Gold positive on the futures. They started the day on the weaker side but have come back. They’re just not giving anything back. Everyone’s on the same side of the boat. Weak hands will get shaken out. 3. Microsoft buying Tik Tok. This is the big news. They have 45 days to make a formal of...

1. Market gapped up but settled down. Apple and Facebook great earnings and are up. Google down and breaking through its 50 day moving average. Apple 4 for 1 split. Amazon up strong. 3 out of 4 not bad Nasdaq. Last day of the month. 2. No summer doldrums. Be on the guarded side. Need to be aware of pulbacks. Watch the semiconductors. If they breakdown, look out below. Nasdaq is down . 3. Gold and...

1. Everything is getting killed today on low volume. Trump Tweet about delaying the elections. This week's Initial claims report increased by 12,000 to 1.434 million. The four-week moving average for initial claims increased by 6,500 to 1,368,500. We were up after a Fed announcement and there’s often a decline the day after. Q2 GDP was -32.9% vs -35.0%. While this is a very bad number if the econo...

1. This afternoon at 2pm ET, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will make their interest rate policy decision for the United States. They are already doing QE unlimited so I do not expect them to make any changes there. Sometimes the verbiage by the central bank can move markets. So we will need to watch for that. What else can they do? Their verbiage could move markets. It will be followed...

1. Yesterday, the market rallied higher across the board. It seems that when we get a Monday rally the rest of the week will see some backing and filling. Today, the major stock indexes are pulling back a little. Encouraging that we’re not down too much. 2. Earnings season is underway, there are lots of stocks that will be on the radar after reporting earnings. Earlier today, McDonalds (MCD), 3m (...

1. Gold is making new all time highs this morning. The precious metal has gone parabolic. This does not mean that the move is over yet. It means that once everyone gets in it at these levels or higher it will usually reverse back down. Ultimately, I still believe it can go a lot higher in the coming years.  It’s occurring at the low end of the monthly chart. We’re only back to where we were in sil...