Day Traders Diary

6/10/15

After struggling with its 100-day moving average (2,086) on Tuesday, the S&P 500 wasted no time charging back above that mark on Wednesday. The benchmark index gained 1.2% while the Dow (+1.3%) and Nasdaq Composite (+1.3%) outperformed throughout the session.

In addition to regaining its 100-day average, the S&P 500 climbed above the 50-day average (2,102) after Bloomberg reported Germany may be willing to offer a staggered deal to Greece. This deal would allow the disbursement of additional bailout funds in exchange for a Greek commitment to executing one of the reforms requested by the creditors. On a related note, the European Central Bank increased Greece's allowance to Emergency Liquidity Assistance funds by EUR2.30 billion to EUR83 billion.

The news jolted global equities, helping Germany's DAX end the day higher by 2.5%. Furthermore, selling in Germany's 10-yr bund resulted in the first test of the 1.00% level since October. Germany's benchmark yield ended the day below its session high of 1.06%, at 0.98% (+3 bps).

Similarly, U.S. Treasuries also retreated, ending near their lows with the benchmark 10-yr yield higher by seven basis points at 2.48%, representing the highest yield since late October. The recent spike in yields has been beneficial to the financial sector (+1.4%), which extended its June advance to 1.9%, ending today's session only behind technology (+1.6%). The financial space received broad support from top-weighted components like Bank of America (BAC 17.59, +0.28), Citigroup (C 57.02, +1.02), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM 68.26, +1.08) with the trio gaining between 1.6% and 1.8%.

Elsewhere, the technology sector held the lead throughout the day, receiving support from large cap names like Apple (AAPL 128.88, +1.46), Google (GOOGL 552.60, +10.44), and Microsoft (MSFT 46.61, +0.96) while chipmakers also held their own with the PHLX Semiconductor Index adding 1.3%.

Over on the countercyclical side, consumer staples (+1.0%) and utilities (+0.5%) ended behind the remaining eight groups while telecom services (+1.2%) and health care (+1.2%) finished near the broader market. The health care sector received support from biotechnology with iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 365.83, +5.19) climbing 1.4%.

Today's trading volume at the NYSE floor was relatively light in the early going, but afternoon buying helped push the total to 766 million, above the 50-day moving average of 748 million.

Economic data was limited to the MBA Mortgage Index and Treasury Budget:

The weekly MBA Mortgage Index spiked 8.4% to follow last week's 7.6% drop

The Treasury Budget showed a deficit of $82.40 billion in May, down from a deficit of $130.00 billion in May 2014 while the Briefing.com consensus expected a deficit of $85.00 billion 

The Treasury data are not seasonally adjusted so the May deficit cannot be compared to the $157 billion surplus in April

Tomorrow, weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 278K), May Retail Sales (consensus 1.1%), and May Import/Export Prices will be reported at 8:30 ET while the April Business Inventories report (consensus 0.2%) will be released at 10:00 ET.

Nasdaq Composite +6.7% YTD

Russell 2000 +5.1% YTD

S&P 500 +2.2% YTD

Dow Jones Industrial Average +1.0% YTD