Margin debt surged in January by much greater than average, but this change does not portray evidence of bullish excess in the market.
Real Time Economic Calendar provided by Investing.com.
*** Stocks highlighted are for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice to purchase or to sell mentioned securities. As always, the use of technical and fundamental analysis is encouraged in order to fine tune entry and exit points to average seasonal trends.
Stocks Entering Period of Seasonal Strength Today:
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Stocks faltered in the final session of the trading week as an often relied upon gauge of inflation by the US Fed showed that pricing pressures reasserted themselves at the start of this year. The S&P 500 Index ended with a loss of 1.05%, closing below its rising 50-day moving average and reaching down to recently broken resistance at its 200-day. As has been highlighted in recent reports, a confluence of support presented by major moving averages in the range of 3900 to 4000 remains in a position to backstop this market and it would take a move below this zone to suggest something increasingly dire for the direction of stocks in the near-term. Momentum indicators remain on a sell signal following the bearish crossover of MACD and its signal line two weeks ago. The market continues to show a lot of respect to seasonal norms and the present period of average weakness typically finds a low around the first half of March, which we are now just days away from.Until then, respect the pullback and be on the lookout for opportunities to take on more risk in portfolios for the spring ramp in equity prices that is normal starting from around the middle of March and peaking around the middle of April.
Today, in our Market Outlook to subscribers, we discuss the following:
Weekly look at the large-cap benchmark
Rise in the dollar and rise in yields, bearish for stocks
US New Home Sales
The start of the optimal holding period for All Country World ex-US Index
Margin Debt in investment accounts and what it has to say about how aggressive investors have been in the equity market
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Sentiment on Friday, as gauged by the put-call ratio, ended bearish at 1.11.
Seasonal charts of companies reporting earnings today: