Day Traders Diary

11/11/14

The major averages ended the Tuesday session on a flat note after spending the trading day near their unchanged levels. The S&P 500 added 0.1% after maintaining a five-point range throughout the day.

Today's trading volume (600 million shares at NYSE) represented the lowest total since early September, but the subdued participation was understandable since the bond market was closed for Veterans Day. The European session had a similar feel with some investors away for Armistice Day. Elsewhere, Japan's Nikkei spiked 2.0% after Reuters reported Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to push back the next sales tax increase and may call for a snap election. The news weighed on the yen, sending the dollar/yen pair into the 116.00 area, but intraday dollar weakness resulted in a pullback below 115.50.

The modest 0.3% retreat in the Dollar Index (87.54, -0.27) helped crude oil ($77.83, +0.43) to a gain of 0.6% while the energy sector (+0.3%) ended the session near its high after showing opening weakness.

Meanwhile, the remaining cyclical sectors ended mixed. Financials (-0.2%), and industrials (-0.1%) lagged while consumer discretionary (+0.4%), technology (+0.1%), and materials (+0.5%) registered gains.

Industrials kept pace with the market early on, but slumped alongside General Electric (GE 26.38, -0.09). The top-weighted sector component lost 0.3% while transport stocks also underperformed. The Dow Jones Transportation Average shed 0.1%.

On the upside, the materials sector received support from miners as Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX 18.22, +0.77) rallied 4.4%. The smallest cyclical sector by weight climbed ahead of the health care (+0.4%), which started in the lead, but retreated from its early high.

Unlike health care, the other countercyclical groups ended in the red. The utilities sector (-0.4%) was the weakest performer while consumer staples (-0.2%) and telecom services (-0.1%) settled closer to their flat lines.

Participants did not receive any economic data today and tomorrow's economic news will be limited to the 7:00 ET release of the MBA Mortgage Index and the Wholesale Inventories report for September (Briefing.com consensus 0.2%), which will be released at 10:00 ET.
"Nasdaq Composite +11.6% YTD
"S&P 500 +10.4% YTD
"Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.3% YTD
"Russell 2000 +1.5% YTD

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