Stock Market Today: April 15th - 19th, 2024

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Tuesday to all of you and welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are over an hour into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Tuesday, April the 16th, 2024!

 

Morning Lineup - 4/16/24 - Hope is a Four Letter Word
Tue, Apr 16, 2024

Futures are higher this morning as positive earnings results lift the mood of investors even as interest rates are higher. Housing Starts and Building permits were just released, and both reports came in lower than expected. Housing Starts were a big miss coming in at 1.321 million compared to forecasts for 1.485. Building Permits were also weaker at 1.458 million versus consensus forecasts for 1.510 million. These reports should have been friendly to rates, but so far there has been very little movement in the 10-year yield. Besides these two reports, the only other items on the calendar are Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization at 9:15. We'll also be hearing from Fed Chair Powel at 1:15 Eastern.

After the last two trading days, and all of April for that matter, there are probably a lot of overexposed traders and investors hoping for an up day or two. We don’t know where the market will go from here in the short term, but at this point, the S&P 500 is only down 3.66% from its closing all-time high at the end of March. That’s not even close to what most people would call a correction, let alone a pullback. While the current decline is the first of that magnitude since late last year, since 1953 there have been 455 declines of 3% or more on a closing basis without a 3% rally in between. That works out to one about every two months. In other words, the fact that we hadn’t had a pullback of 3% in over five months was more unusual than the fact that the S&P 500 is now down over 3% from its high. In fact, since 1953, there have only been ten other periods where the S&P 500 went longer than the just-ended streak without falling 3% from a local closing high.

Looking at the four major US indices across the market cap spectrum, the Russell 2000 is the only one not up YTD, although it was in the black just a week ago. What’s also notable is that a week ago all four indices were above their 50-day moving averages (DMA) and two (MDY and SPY) were overbought. As of yesterday’s close, all four indices are not below their 50-DMA, and two (QQQ and IWM) are oversold. Change tends to happen fast in the markets.



The fact that all four of the indices shown above closed below their 50-DMA yesterday was notable because it was the first time since November 2nd that all four of them closed below their 50-DMAs. Since 1990, that streak was on the extreme side, but it wasn’t unheard of as eleven streaks were longer and another six lasted longer than 100 trading days. The most recent ended in August of last year (106 trading days), and the longest was 262 trading days ending in January 1996.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Tuesday, April 16th, 2024.

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Hump Day to all of you and welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are under an hour into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Wednesday, April the 17th, 2024!

 

Morning Lineup - 4/17/24 - Quiet But Positive
Wed, Apr 17, 2024

There's not a lot of news to speak of this morning, but that isn't stopping futures from drifting higher. Treasury yields, crude oil, and gold are all little changed with a negative bias. Mortgage applications increased in the latest week even after yields surged, but other than that, the economic calendar is empty for the rest of the day.

54 years ago today, Americans were glued to their TVs anxiously watching as Apollo 13 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a troubled six-day mission in space. While the world breathed a sigh of relief as Apollo 13 returned safely from orbit and down to Earth, investors today are nervously watching the market as it comes back down to earth. After trading at overbought levels for months, major indices around the world are pulling back and falling from overbought levels and back below their 50-day moving averages. Yesterday, it was the STOXX 600’s turn as the index closed below its 50-DMM for the first time since November 14th.



Yesterday’s decline ended the longest streak of closes above the 50-DMA since June 2017 and just the 11th streak that lasted more than 100 days. The longest of those streaks ended in April 1997 at 160 trading days and also occurred within a year of the second longest streak on record (142 trading days ending on 6/7/1996).

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Wednesday, April 17th, 2024.

 

Top of the morning StonkForumers! Happy Thursday to all of you and welcome to the new trading day and a frrrrrrrrrrrresh start. Here is a quick check on those futures as we are over an hour into the US cash market open.

GLTA on this Thursday, April the 18th, 2024!

 

Morning Lineup - 4/18/24
Thu, Apr 18, 2024

Futures are trading slightly higher this morning, but that's nothing new as we've seen a number of days in the last week or two start higher only to roll over and sell-off into the close. We cover the recent intraday selling on page four of this morning's report.

At the end of March, most US equity index ETFs were trading in overbought territory, but now it's the opposite as shown in the snapshot from our Trend Analyzer below. Small-caps and the Dow are at the most extreme oversold levels.



The percentage of stocks in the S&P 500 that are overbought versus oversold has completely flipped as well, with 46% of the index now oversold compared to just 6% that remain overbought.

 

Here is a final look at today's market and futures maps, as well as how each sector performed individually at the close on Thursday, April 18th, 2024.