The Cause of Monday’s Sell-Off

By David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

Technology and Materials have been the major drag on the market this week, through Wednesday. Surprisingly, Financials and Energy have held up pretty well. It’s tough for the Technology sector, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq to perform when the biggest market-cap company—Apple (AAPL)—misses estimates for the first time in forever, I think. Or was it 2004?

Market Rally Continues But Not Sure Why...

By David Brown, Chief Market Strategist, Sabrient Systems

The usual suspects of Materials, Industrials, Financials and Energy continue to lead this unstable market both up and down. Technology has been less volatile, and in fact it has been tracking closely with Healthcare lately. These two also happen to rank the highest this week in Sabrient’s SectorCast ETF rankings.

Investors dumped equities late last week ahead of the weekend – largely due to the tenuous situation with Greece’s debt and the associated fall in the euro (and a commensurate rise in the dollar). But I also think there was a flight-to-safety ahead of the 9/11 anniversary, especially among Wall Street traders given the terror threats and heavy security in NYC.