Stock Market Today: February 15th - 19th, 2021

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Welcome StonkForums to the trading week of February 15th!

Stimulus prospects could boost the stock market and interest rates in the week ahead

The stock market continues on a track higher, as investors watch for new developments on the $1.9 trillion fiscal stimulus package winding its way through Congress.

In the week ahead, interest rates could continue to rise and the inflation debate is likely to continue as the market weighs the impact of that potential spending.

Several dozen firms are releasing earnings, including Walmart and Deere. Economic data releases include the producer price index, retail sales and a batch of housing statistics.

The prospects of a big government spending program could continue to boost the stock market and put upward pressure on interest rates in the week ahead.

Earnings season is beginning to wind down, but some big names have yet to report.

Walmart’s earnings on Thursday should provide a good window into the consumer, as should the government’s retail sales report for January, also expected Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday afternoon releases minutes from its last meeting, and investors will dig into those for any insight into the central bank’s view on inflation.

Two dominant themes amid stimulus prospects
Inflation and rising interest rates have been two dominant themes for investors recently and have become increasingly so as the market has upgraded its view of how much fiscal coronavirus stimulus could be signed into law.

“The market is waiting to see how big the package is going to be. It’s going to be important. They can get it through reconciliation,” said Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial.

Krosby said that Democrats could pass the stimulus under budget reconciliation, which means they could approve it with a simple majority instead of relying on negotiations with Republicans.

Some in the markets had anticipated a package of $1 trillion or less if there was a negotiated deal, but that now looks unlikely. Strategists have changed their view on the proposed $1.9 trillion package.

“There is less pushback to President Biden’s proposed stimulus from moderate Democrats than we expected, so a price tag of around $1.5 trillion seems likely, which is higher than we initially thought,” noted Cornerstone Macro policy analysts.

They say they expect a bill to come to the floor during the week of Feb. 22, and that it could become law by the first week of March. Investors will stay focused on its progress through Congress.

Market pros expect the bigger the spending package, the larger the pop will be in economic growth in the near term. That has helped send Treasury yields, which move opposite price, to higher levels.

It has also increased concerns about inflation.

Inflation and rising yields
In the past week, the 10-year yield — a key benchmark — touched 1.2% for the first time since March. It reached that level briefly early in the week but returned to it in the final hour of trading Friday.

Yields are rising on optimism for an improving economy, but also as inflation expectations also move higher.

“If you think about the big drivers, they’re related - vaccines, stimulus and inflation,” said Michael Schumacher, head of rate strategy at Wells Fargo Securities. “If there’s more talk out of D.C. about moving the stimulus package forward, that sets the stage for yields to go up.”

The market is concerned about the economy running hotter, since it could be a trigger to change Fed policy.

At the same time, the Fed has said it would tolerate inflation above its 2% target.

Krosby of Prudential Financial said the market will also pay attention to the producer price index Wednesday even though it is not typically a big factor.

“Because there’s such a debate on inflationary trends, I know the CPI [consumer price index] came in comfortable, but the producer price index is coming in and we’ll see if that has eased,” she said.

“Obviously supply chains are being reestablished and inventories are building,” said Krosby.

Consumer inflation was running at an annual pace of 1.4% in January.

Housing statistics
Housing data is also dominant on the calendar in the holiday-shortened week.

The National Association of Home Builders releases its housing market index data on Wednesday, a measurement of sentiment around market conditions for new home sales.

On Thursday, the government will issue data on pending home sales and building permits. Finally, the National Association of Realtors will release existing home sales data on Friday.

Upcoming hearing on GameStop and short squeezes
Stocks were higher in the past week, with energy, tech and financials as the best performers. The S&P 500 rose 1.2%, ending the week at 3,934.

There were some market hot spots, like cannabis shares which became the latest target of the Reddit trading community. The stocks shot higher Wednesday, adding to already lofty gains in recent weeks before giving up some of those gains.

Investors will also be focused on the Thursday hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on the wild trading recently in GameStop and other heavily-shorted names.

Robinhood’s CEO is expected to testify, as are executives from Melvin Capital Management and Citadel.

The frenzied activity in some small and shorted stocks has raised concerns about the market becoming overheated. But Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, said the broader market’s advance is intact.

“Overall, it’s a bull market. I think the steadiness of the advance is underappreciated,” Wald said. He said the market technicals are healthy. Breadth is broad-based and there’s cyclical leadership.

“The low-volatility, high-dividend paying sectors are at risk,” said Wald. Utilities and consumer staples stocks, which both fit that category, were lower on the week.

The market was also awaiting the outcome of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, and it is not expected to react.
Click to expand...

This past week saw the following moves in the S&P:

Major Indices End of Week:

Major Futures Markets on Friday:

Economic Calendar for the Week Ahead:

What to Watch in the Week Ahead:

Monday

Presidents’ Day holiday

Markets closed

Tuesday

Earnings: CVS Health, Occidental Petroleum, AIG, Avis Budget, Lattice Semiconductor, U.S. Foods, Advance Auto Parts, Vulcan Materials, Palantir, Agilent, La-Z-Boy

8:30 a.m. Empire manufacturing

11:10 a.m. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman

12:30 p.m. Kansas City Fed President Esther George

1:00 p.m. Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan

4:00 p.m. TIC data

Wednesday

Earnings: Hilton Worldwide, Synopsys, Pioneer Natural Resources, Cheesecake Factory, Tanger Factory Outlets, Hyatt Hotels, Owens Corning, Baidu, CF Industries, Marathon Oil, Analog Devices

7:00 a.m. Mortgage applications

8:30 a.m. Retail sales

8:30 a.m. PPI

9:15 a.m. Industrial production

10:00 a.m. Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren

10:00 a.m. NAHB survey

2:00 p.m. FOMC minutes

Thursday

Earnings: Walmart, Applied Materials, Cabot Oil and Gas, Barrick Gold, Southern Co, Waste Management, Marriott, Dropbox, Trip Advisor, Consolidated Edison, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Airbus, Daimler

8:00 a.m. Fed Governor Lael Brainard

8:30 a.m. Jobless claims

8:30 a.m. Building permits

8:30 a.m. Housing starts

8:30 a.m. Philadelphia Fed survey

Friday

Earnings: Deere & Co., Eni, Allianz

10:00 a.m. Existing homes sales

11:00 a.m. Boston Fed’s Rosengren

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Bonds & The Dollar Dumped, Black Gold & Bitcoin Pumped
A noisy week in US equities (led by Small Caps) after record inflows, ending with the ubiquitous buying-panic ahead of the long weekend...

But while Wall Street ended at record highs, Main Street sentiment has collapsed...

Source: Bloomberg

"It's good to be king..."

The frenzy of trading in U.S. equities is showing no signs of abating and looks set to surpass levels seen during the worst of the pandemic panic in March.

Source: Bloomberg

Heavily-shorted Biotechs tumbled this week after a big open Monday...

Source: Bloomberg

But the original WSB short-squeeze stocks actually rallied this week (though context is critical)...

Source: Bloomberg

And while Pot stocks started the week magnificently, they ended ugly...

Source: Bloomberg

TSLA had an ugly week as the automaker desperately clung to $800...

And TLRY changed its mind faster than Fauci on mask-wearing...

VIX tumbled this week, closing at its lowest in a year...

Source: Bloomberg

As Net Specs are at their shortest VIX since Feb 2020 also...

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields ended the week higher after bonds were dumped today...

Source: Bloomberg

10Y and 30Y yields pushed up their highest level YTD today, with the latter back above 2.00%...

Source: Bloomberg

The biggest driver of bond yields appears to be breakevens which are in turn rallying on crude...

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar puked all week, almost back to unchanged on the year...

Source: Bloomberg

And as the dollar dumped, crypto soared...

Source: Bloomberg

With Ethereum above $1850 at new record highs after a good monkey-hammering early in the week...

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin also screamed higher, breaking above $49k at its peak after Elon Musk said Tesla was a buyer...

Source: Bloomberg

Oil outperformed on the week along with copper as PMs managed to hold on to gains, despite a weak dollar...

Source: Bloomberg

WTI prices rose for the 9th day in the last 10, and exploded higher today, breaking above $59...

Finally, if the 'smart money' is selling, who's been chasing all these money-losing, massive gamble SPACs and IPOs on the break?

Source: Bloomberg

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Here are the percentage changes for the major indices for WTD, MTD, QTD & YTD in 2021-

S&P sectors for the past week-

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Presidents' Day Seasonality
Fri, Feb 12, 2021

The US equity market will be closed on Monday in observance of the Presidents' Day holiday. Since 1971 when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act set the third Monday in February, rather than on George Washington's birthday (February 22nd) as the Federal holiday, equity market performance during the week of Presidents' Day has been pretty mixed. From the Friday before President's Day through the Friday after, the S&P 500 has traded higher half the time for an average decline of 5 bps. Taking a closer look, in the chart below we show the median returns by day for each trading day in Presidents' week. Tuesday and Thursday have both averaged declines of 13 bps and 7 bps, respectively. Wednesday averages flat performance but the S&P 500 has only been higher 40% of the time. Despite weakness throughout most of the week, equities have tended to catch a bid by week's end with an average 6 bps gain on Friday with a move higher 58% of the time.

In the charts below, we show the average intraday performance of the S&P 500 during Presidents' Day week since 1983 when our intraday data begins. We also include looks for years when the S&P 500 was up and down YTD headed into the holiday. Again, the general pattern has been a steady drift lower until Friday when the S&P 500 has tended to rebound. We would note that the Friday rebound is not an all-day event. As shown, performance is pretty flat in the first several hours of trading with the biggest ramp higher occurring in the final of hours of tradings. That pattern is also consistent for both up and down years, though, in years that the S&P 500 was down YTD headed into the holiday there was a bit of a rebound midweek which was reversed by the end of the week.

Trading After Presidents’ Day Weekend Continues to be Weak

In a recent post we looked at the improving trend of market performance ahead of Presidents’ Day weekend. However, the two days after still display a fair amount of red. Since 1990, Tuesday after Presidents’ Day has been strongest for the S&P 500 with 18 gains and 13 losses for median gain of 0.12% but with an average loss of –0.23%. DJIA also has more gains than losses on the Tuesday after, but NASDAQ is a net loser down 18 of 31 years with and average loss of –0.49% and a median loss of –0.11%.

Wednesday is all red for all three major averages. NASDAQ and S&P 500 have more losses, but DJIA has a larger average loss. On the Wednesday after the Presidents’ Day holiday DJIA is down 16 of 31 with an average loss of –0.07% and a median decline of –0.10%. S&P 500 is down 18 of 31, average –0.02%, median –0.10% and NASDAQ is down 17 of 31, average –0.01%, median –0.09%.

Why Bulls Will Like The Year Of The Ox
Wednesday, February 10, 2021

“Bulls make money, bears make money, and pigs get slaughtered.” Old Wall Street saying.

The Chinese New Year (often called the Lunar New Year) will kick off Friday, February 12, and with it will begin the Year of the Ox. Although we would never suggest investing based on the zodiac signs—it is important to note that the Year of the Ox has historically been quite strong for equities. Not to mention we are saying goodbye to the year of the Rat. Good riddance to the Rat, as the last two years of the Rat were 2008 and 2020, not the best years for many reasons!

Since the Chinese New Year typically starts between late-January and mid-February, we looked at the 12-month return of the S&P 500 Index starting at the end of January dating back to 1950. And wouldn’t you know it? The Year of the Ox has been up more than 13% on average (with a median advance of nearly 18%); suggesting bulls are smiling indeed!

“The year of the Ox is the second of the 12 animal signs of the Chinese zodiac, and the Ox is considered a symbol of diligence, persistence, and honesty. Equity returns indeed are quite persistent during the Ox, as it is the third best return out of the 12 Zodiac signs,” explained LPL Chief Market Strategist Ryan Detrick.

The LPL Chart of the Day shows how all the 12 Zodiac signs have done historically, with the Goat, Tiger, and Ox as the best, while the Rooster and Snake have been the worst.

We want to stress that no one should invest purely based on the zodiac signs. This relationship is random and the sample size is small. Still, here’s hoping that the Year of the Ox plays out well for the bulls once again!

Short Interest Update
Wed, Feb 10, 2021

Yesterday, bi-weekly short interest data was released for the period ending January 30th. In the chart below, we show the Russell 3000 broken up into deciles based on short interest as a percent of the float at the end of 2020 and these decile's stock's median change in short interest from then to yesterday's release. As shown, with the short squeeze episode playing out in the second half of January, the stocks that came into 2020 the most heavily shorted have seen the biggest declines in short interest. That decile of what had been the most heavily shorted names has seen short interest as a percent of float fall for a median of 2.65 percentage points. Deciles two and three have similarly seen sizable declines, though, they are far smaller than those of the most shorted stocks. On the other hand, the decile of the least shorted stocks is the only one that has seen the median short interest reading move higher since the end of 2020.

In the table below, we show the stocks that currently have the highest short interest as a percent of float. After the historic move higher, short squeeze poster child GameStop (GME) is no longer the Russell 3000's most heavily shorted name! Having dropped over 100 percentage points since the start of the year, only 42.61% of shares are now short compared to 43.57% for Gogo (GOGO); currently the most shorted stock in the index. GOGO has actually seen its shorts come off a bit this year as well but that decline has been far more modest of only a little more than one percentage point. Of the other stocks in the index, only Tanger Outlets (SKT) and Dillard's (DDS) also currently have more than 40% of the float sold short.

On the January 27th closing high, GME was up 1,744.53% year to date. But with the short squeeze unwinding, the stock has fallen over 86%. Others of this cohort have similarly seen big reversals of their earlier surges. For example, National Beverage (FIZZ) had doubled YTD at the time of the GME peak, but since then it has been cut by 33.78%. Not all of these have been losers since the pinnacle of short selling though. Fulgent Genetics, which now has over 30% of shares short, has risen 91.01%. Clovis Oncology (CLVS) and Ligand Pharmaceuticals (LGND) have similarly seen big gains of over 30%.

Given GME came into the year with an absurd number of shares sold short, the squeeze has resulted in it being the biggest decliner in terms of short interest of any Russell 3000 stock. Short interest as a percentage of float has fallen over 100 percentage points YTD. The next biggest drop came from BigCommerce Holdings (BIGC) and Dillard's (DDS) which both saw larger than 50 percentage point drops. Of the rest of the top twenty biggest decliners, a baker's dozen have seen short interest drop by at least 20 points. Additionally, of these stocks that have seen short interest fall the most, only three—nCino (NCNO), Berkeley Lights (BLI), and 3D Systems (DDD)—now have a single-digit short interest as a percent of float.

Given the massive short squeezes, there are far more stocks that now have a lower short interest as a percent of float than at the start of the year. In fact, of the Russell 3000 stocks, 1887 have seen declines in short interest compared to only 1146 that have seen an increase. In the table below, we show the twenty stocks to have seen the biggest increases in SIPF since the start of the year. As shown, there is only one, International Game Technology (IGT), that has seen short interest rise by double digits since the end of 2020.

Retailers notably dominate the list of stocks with the biggest declines in short interest. To quantify this, in the chart below we show the aggregate number of shorted shares as a percent of total float for each industry group as of the most recent short interest data and the end of 2020. As shown, just as it was at the start of the year, retailers remain the most heavily shorted industry group, but it has greatly improved with only 5.86% short compared to 8.15% at the end of 2020. That is the only industry group to have seen short interest drop by a full percentage point or more. The industry group to have experienced the next largest decline was Transportation with aggregate short interest falling from 5.08% to 4.13%. Conversely, there are two industries, Banks and Materials, that have higher short interest as a percent of float than they did at the end of 2020.

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Here are the current major indices pullback/correction levels from ATHs as of week ending 2.12.21-

Here is also the pullback/correction levels from current prices-

Here are the current major indices rally levels from correction low as of week ending 2.12.21-

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Here are the upcoming IPO's for this week-

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Stock Market Analysis Video for February 12th, 2021
Video from AlphaTrends

ShadowTrader Video Weekly 2.14.21
Video from ShadowTrader
(VIDEO NOT YET POSTED.)

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

Here are the most anticipated Earnings Releases for this upcoming trading week ahead.

***Check mark next to the stock symbols denotes confirmed earnings release date & time***

Monday 2.15.21 Before Market Open:

NONE. (U.S. MARKETS CLOSED IN OBSERVANCE OF PRESIDENT'S DAY.)

Monday 2.15.21 After Market Close:

NONE. (U.S. MARKETS CLOSED IN OBSERVANCE OF PRESIDENT'S DAY.)

Tuesday 2.16.21 Before Market Open:

Tuesday 2.16.21 After Market Close:

Wednesday 2.17.21 Before Market Open:

Wednesday 2.17.21 After Market Close:

Thursday 2.18.21 Before Market Open:

Thursday 2.18.21 After Market Close:

Friday 2.19.21 Before Market Open:

Friday 2.19.21 After Market Close:

NONE.

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

And finally here is the most anticipated earnings calendar for this upcoming trading week ahead-
($PLTR $SHOP $CVS $WMT $ROKU $FSLY $FVRR $AAP $TLRY $TWLO $WIX $AMAT $GOLD $TTD $AN $DBX $BIDU $YNDX $WING $LPX $ZTS $TRU $SPWR $ECL $ADI $BIGC $SEDG $EXPD $WM $MRO $RNG $STMP $USFD $TRMN $ET $BKI $OXY $TRTN $VMC $TSEM $SNBR $HLT)

If you guys want to view the full earnings post please see this thread here-

Most Anticipated Earnings Releases for the week beginning February 15th, 2021 <-- click there to view!

bigbear0083 · Feb 12, 2021

REMINDER: U.S. MARKETS ARE CLOSED ON MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15TH, 2021 IN OBSERVANCE OF PRESIDENTS DAY.

Here is the CME Globex holiday schedule for the upcoming President's Day Holiday:

bigbear0083 · Feb 16, 2021

bigbear0083 · Feb 16, 2021

Good Tuesday morning StonkForumers!

Here is this morning's pre-market news thread for those of you wanting to get a quick read before today's open-
<-- click there to read!

Hope everyone has a great trading day ahead on this first trading day of the new week.

bigbear0083 · Feb 16, 2021

Morning Lineup - 2/16/21 - While You Were Out
Tue, Feb 16, 2021

While you were on vacation over the long weekend, global risk assets continued to rally around the world. The most notable of these advances may have been bitcoin, which rallied right through this morning and briefly touched $50K before pulling back a bit in the time since. While it may have been nothing more than a coincidence, we couldn't help but notice seeing headlines from St. Louis Fed President Bullard saying that the FOMC isn't even thinking about thinking about raising interest rates interspersed with headlines regarding Bitcoin's topping of $50K. In economic news this morning, the only data point was the Empire Manufacturing report which came in at twice the consensus forecast (12.1 vs 6.0), so the manufacturing sector appears to remain strong.

It was another strong week for global equities last week. While small caps led the way in the US, every US index ETF that we track in our Trend Analyzer tool posted positive returns. Micro-Caps, as measured by IWC surged 3.85%, but large and mega-cap ETFs were all up less than 1.5%. While the gains are fun if you're long, market rallies inevitably cause short-term overbought conditions, and that's exactly the environment we find ourselves heading into the holiday-shortened week. Every index ETF we track is currently at least at overbought conditions and seven are at 'extreme' levels. These types of overbought conditions ultimately need to be worked off through either a correction in time or price, and that's why seven of the ETFs have timing scores that rank as 'Poor' while the rest are all neutral.

bigbear0083 · Feb 16, 2021

hard to believe we're now only 50 handles from that 4k print on the spx

Cy McCaffrey · Feb 16, 2021

@stock1234 i finally managed to get your "rocket" emoji added in here

let me know what ya think

bigbear0083 · Feb 16, 2021

btw, can someone just do me this quick favor in here if you won't mind!

fwiw, i had added a few finviz charting capabilities into this forum using simple bbcodes (for example [bbcode]text[/bbcode]) and i even posted it in this thread but i never actually had anyone test it out for me that day to see if it even worked..

i would be super grateful if someone in here can actually test this all out for me in here.

here are the following charting bbcodes that i added that week and would be super awesome if someone in here could just run a quick test of it in here to see if they got them working.

PHP:

[chart]TICKERSYMBOL[/chart] ^ pulls the daily stock chart from finviz using that tag. [intraday]TICKERSYMBOL[/intraday] ^ pulls the intraday stock chart from finviz using that tag. [weekly]ticker[/weekly] ^ pulls the weekly stock chart from finviz using that tag. [monthly]ticker[/monthly] ^ pulls the monthly stock chart from finviz using that tag. [tchart]ticker[/tchart] ^ pulls the daily technical stock chart from finviz using that tag.

thanks!

Stoch · Feb 16, 2021

Ill try

^ pulls the intraday stock chart from finviz using that tag.

^ pulls the weekly stock chart from finviz using that tag.

^ pulls the monthly stock chart from finviz using that tag.

bigbear0083 · Feb 16, 2021

Thanks @Stoch! Oh and cool, it looks like the charts come out as dynamic too (which just means they update automatically on every page refresh) which is neat.

stock1234 · Feb 16, 2021

Cy McCaffrey said: ↑

@stock1234 i finally managed to get your "rocket" emoji added in here

let me know what ya think

Click to expand...

Thank you Cy that's really cool

stock1234 · Feb 16, 2021

SCKT today lol

Stock Market Today: February 15th - 19th, 2021

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