By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

The major US stock indexes continue to hold near their highs, awaiting the next upside catalyst, supported by persistently low interest rates, record share buybacks, net solid economic reports, and continued organic growth in corporate earnings – in spite of disappointments in the fiscal policy front. The S&P 500 has held solidly above 2,400, the Dow has stayed above 21,000, the Russell 2000 has held 1,400, the Tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has held 6,000 despite a severe pullback in the market-leading large-cap Tech stocks, and oil has held above the critical $40 mark despite being in a general downtrend since the start of the year.

Recent momentum resides in Transportation, Financial, and small caps, which is a bullish development. In fact, the Dow Jones Transportation Average is setting new highs and is in full-on breakout mode.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review Sabrient’s weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas. In summary, our sector rankings still look slightly bullish, while the sector rotation model maintains its bullish bias and the climate overall still seems favorable for risk assets like equities – particularly dividend payers, small caps, and GARP stocks (i.e., growth companies among all caps selling at attractive forward PEG ratios). Moreover, July is typically a solid month for stocks, a strong first half typically bodes well for the second half, and the technical picture still looks favorable. Read on...

By Scott Martindale
President, Sabrient Systems LLC

In late May, the major US stock indexes finally eclipsed those pesky psychological levels and hit new highs, and this week they have managed to maintain the breakout even in the face of James Comey’s Congressional testimony and the British election, not to mention more saber-rattling from North Korea. The S&P 500 has held above 2,400, and the Dow has maintained the 21,000 level. The ultra-strong and Tech-heavy Nasdaq regained 6,300 and the Russell 2000 small caps moved back above 1,400 after both briefly pulling back below to test support early in the week. They both showed notable strength on Thursday after the James Comey testimony. Such backing-and-filling and technical consolidation was inevitable given that the proverbial “rubber band” was stretched so tight, with price rising well above the moving averages.

With the strength in Nasdaq, it should come as no surprise that the Technology sector has been by far the top performing sector, up about +22% year to date, while Energy has struggled, falling about -15% YTD. Notably, on Wednesday, oil prices fell more than 4% due to an unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories.

In this periodic update, I give my view of the current market environment, offer a technical analysis of the S&P 500 chart, review Sabrient’s weekly fundamentals-based SectorCast rankings of the ten U.S. business sectors, and then offer up some actionable ETF trading ideas. In summary, our sector rankings still look bullish, while the sector rotation model maintains its bullish bias. Volatility remains historically low, economic conditions continue to improve, and overall, the climate seems quite favorable for risk assets like equities – particularly dividend payers, small caps, and GARP stocks (i.e., growth companies among all caps selling at attractive forward PEG ratios). Read on....