Comment: Whoosh. Nike Day or maybe it was "Good Night, Irene". This felt like one of those low volume days that occur in the Festive Season (late December, early January), when lots of traders are away from their desks and the office boys at the big investment banks and hedge funds take over and have fun pushing the market to unseemly limits. Then the traders come back at the end of the first week in January and reverse everything.
NewHighs/NewLows came in at 30/9. Finally, New Highs exceed New Lows. The New Highs number is still far from buoyant.
Bespoke Investment Group (BIG) report that the Advances in the SP500 numbered 491. Everything (almost) went up today. That's euphoria and not sustainable. Expect a flat or down day tomorrow.
The Materials Sector +3.02% and Energy Sector +2.92%. Those numbers are strong leads for the Australian market on Tuesday. All nine S&P Sectors were up with Financials doing best +4.19%. The Banking Sector was very strongly, +4.54%. Semi-conductors was up, +3.66%.
Europe: France +2.16% Germany +2.39% London closed
So - we can see why volume on the American exchange was so low. Not only was New York barely operating with Hurricane Irene doing its thing, but the other big financial centre in the world, London, was closed for a public holiday. Treat today's low volume with caution.
Gold in U.S. Dollars is down -2.48%. Gold in Oz Dollars is down -3.39%. AUD/USD rose, 0.74% to finish at 106.92. The AUD/USD is now in an upsloping, right-angled triangle. The Ozzie is now back above the 200-Day Moving Average and broken above an ascending right-angled triangle. EWA (the ETF for Australian shares) up +2.86%.
Technical Comment on the DJ Industrial Average:
The DJIA finished at 11539.25. Above resistance around 11480, but only marginally Below the 13-Day MA. Positive. Below the 150-Day MA. Negative. Indicators: Stochastic: 77.4. Positive. Close to overbought The 13-Day MA is below the 150-Day MA. Long-term negative. RSI.9 is at 56.1 and heading up. Positive. MACD Histogram above Zero. Positive. MACD below zero. Negative. Not far below Zero. CCI.9: 110.7. Rising into the overbought zone.
The market made a 1/2/3 break above 11480, confirmed by indicators. The break was marginal on low volume - so there's still a question mark about today's action.
The chart, however, is looking a lot better than early August. Base building seems to be occurring. Solid support both horizontal and oblique now lies in the low 11,000 region, even if we do get a set back here.
Finally, here's a long term monthly chart for the doomsters to think about:
(20min delay)