Credit: Shutterstock photoTuesday,March27, 2018, 12:53 PM, EST
- NASDAQ Composite+0.14%Dow+0.59%S&P 500+0.38%Russell 2000+0.22%
- NASDAQ Advancers:1213Decliners:1075
- Today's Volume (vs. Monday)-12.52%
Markets are trading flat to higher at mid-day, holding onto yesterday's gains following last week's broad sell-off. All 11 S&P 500 sectors are either flat or in positive territory with Tech (+0.71%) and Utilities (+0.64%) the outperformers. Crude oil is down 0.45%, Gold is down 0.92%, the dollar is firmer while the Euro sells-off and the yield on the 10-yr Treasury has decreased to 2.814%.
- Yesterday the markets saw a broad rally as fears of restrictive trade policies waned. The Dow rose 2.84% while the S&P 500 gained 2.72%, the Russell 2000 increased 2.23% and the Nasdaq Composite rallied 3.26%. For the year, the Dow is down 1.33%, the S&P 500 is down 0.15%, the Russell 2000 is up 0.05% and the Nasdaq Composite is up 4.81%.
- A fair amount of M&A activity is hitting the tape today. Novartis (NVS) I selling its JV consumer healthcare stake to GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) for $13 billion. GGP Inc. (GGP) has agreed to be acquired by Brookfield Property Partners (BPY ) in a deal valued at $9.25 billion. And yesterday, Finish Line (FINL) agreed to be acquired by JD Sports Fashion PLC for $439 million. M&A activity YTD (announced, proposed or completed) totals $1.5 trillion globally which is a $100 billion uptick from last week.
- The 2018 Major League Baseball regular season starts in two days on March 29 th , the earliest Opening Day in league history. In addition to the early start, all 30 MLB teams will be in action on Opening Day this year. MLB revenue has been steadily climbing over the past 15 years with 2017 seeing gross revenues exceed $10 billion for the 1 st time ever. Will 2018 continue this trend? With MLB game attendance declining last year, will the uptick this year come from ticket sales, vendor sales, add sponsorship or team sales?
Technical Take: What Can Bonds Tell Us About Stocks?
Last week the major equity indices experienced their biggest weekly declines since Q1'16. The brunt of the selling took place on Thursday and Friday with the indices closing at the lows of the weekly range leading many pundits to forecast downside follow through early this week. As is often the case, the market did the opposite of what many expected and equities had one of their best days in years. Equities today are oscillating around the breakeven level and the big question many are now pondering is whether or not the last two months of corrective price action is complete, or if lower lows are in store. One clue to solving that problem could reside in high yield corporate bonds. The iShares High Yield ETF, ticker HYG, has a strong 0.77 correlation to the S&P500. On Friday the HYG bottomed at nearly the exact same closing price it made back in early February, which previously had not been seen since Q4'16. This double bottom setup could be THE test in determining whether or not a larger, "rounding top" bearish reversal pattern is triggered. It is worth nothing that a bullish divergence was formed at last week's low with its RSI making a noticeably higher low. If the HYG can see upside follow through form here, equities could be in the early stages of a fresh uptrend which many Elliot Wave Theorists are counting as the final 5th wave of a five wave sequence that started in Q1'16.
Nasdaq's Market Intelligence Desk (MID) Team includes:
Michael Sokoll, CFA is a Senior Managing Director on the Market Intelligence Desk (MID) at Nasdaq with over 25 years of equity market experience. In this role, he manages a team of professionals responsible for providing NASDAQ-listed companies with real-time trading analysis and objective market information.
Jeffrey LaRocque is a Director on the Market Intelligence Desk (MID) at Nasdaq, covering U.S. equities with over 10 years of experience having learned market structure while working on institutional trading desks and as a stock surveillance analyst. Jeff's diverse professional knowledge includes IPOs, Technical Analysis and Options Trading.
Steven Brown is a Managing Director on the Market Intelligence Desk (MID) at Nasdaq with over twenty years of experience in equities. With a focus on client retention he currently covers the Financial, Energy and Media sectors.
Christopher Dearborn is a Managing Director on the Market Intelligence Desk (MID) at Nasdaq. Chris has over two decades of equity market experience including floor and screen based trading, corporate access, IPOs and asset allocation. Chris is responsible for providing timely, accurate and objective market and trading-related information to Nasdaq-listed companies.
Annie O'Callaghan is Director on the Market Intelligence Desk (MID) at Nasdaq. Annie has worked for NASDAQ in a variety of roles including support of Nasdaq C-level management in client retention and customer service. Annie also served as a Sales Director in Nasdaq's Transactions Services business. Prior to joining Nasdaq, Annie worked at AX Trading, managing accounts for its Alternative Trading System and served on Credit Suisse's trading desk as an Electronic & Algorithmic Sales Trading Analyst.
Brian Joyce, CMT is a Director on the Market Intelligence Desk (MID) at Nasdaq. Before joining Nasdaq Brian spent 16 years as an institutional trader executing equity and options orders for both the buy side and sell side. He also provided trading ideas and wrote technical analysis commentary for an institutional research offering. Brian focuses on helping Nasdaq's Financial, Healthcare and Transportation companies, among others, understand the trading in their stock. Brian is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT).
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
