I continue to look for signs this market wants to go higher, but it refuses to show me some resilience.
In what can only be described as a barbell strategy, on one end is the safety of Utilities and Consumer Staples which may not make a lot of money, but it’s not a hole in the pocket either. In the middle are the Nasdaq names that continue to ooze lower. On the other end are the industrials and commodities that continue to work. They are trying to get going here but that hasn’t been easy either.
The QQQ chart just keeps drifting. This is the third test of this level. Can we hold?
Software is down hard this week. It opened Friday morning down 6% from Tuesday’s high.
The US Dollar, tried to reverse and go higher this week. It made new one month highs after consolidating through December. But Friday reversed that breakout as the market surged higher. While the US dollar has weakened, some areas like precious metals and industrial metals have been trying to work higher.
After the wage pressures pulled back in the jobs report, we are surging higher by 1% on the first Friday of 2023.
Copper names have started to move and I’ll have more information in the client newsletter, but the ride is wild. In five days TECK lost 10%, made new one month lows, bounced off the 50 DMA and the 200 DMA, and has now rallied to new highs in 2 days. That’s just one example of how difficult it is to hold something, especially with a stop at 8 or 10%.
For a big warm welcome to the trading of 2023, I will be doing a presentation on Tuesday about how we plan to approach the turbulent trading market of 2023 on Tuesday at 1 PM ET! You can register for the free event at this link. A Better Plan. We have two primary goals. Protect capital, ride uptrends. If you struggled in 2022 or would like some other ideas, Osprey Strategic is a very affordable service starting at $7.
With that, let’s kick off 2023 with a bang!
Good trading,
Greg Schnell, CMT, MFTA