Shake It Up

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Wednesday was supposed to be a rock ’em, sock ’em big day on the markets, but once all the dust settled, the Dow Industrials closed up six – – count ’em – – six points. That’s only six points larger than it changes on a Saturday.

In any case, let’s stroll through some ETFs. As always, click on any image for a much bigger version. I’ve tried to order and group these in a sensible fashion, and instead of interspersing paragraph text, I’m captioning each chart.

slopechart DBC
The commodities markets have been strong; I’ve drawn a resistance lined, but frankly it’ll probably get taken out with the continuing strength in crude oil.
slopechart USO
Oil has been up almost daily since Christmas. There’s very little standing in its way. Please note an OPEC meeting is going to close out this week.
slopechart ITB
Home construction recently cut above its resistance (now support), so this could gain strength from present price levels.
slopechart DIA
The Dow has a failed bullish breakout, although the long-promised trade deal could right this ship; for the moment, there’s been no follow-through to the breakout.
slopechart IYT
The Transports remain historically weaker than the Industrials and have yet to push past the price gap (noted with the horizontal line)
slopechart IWM
Small caps are much farther away from lifetime highs than, for example, the S&P 500, but they were much stronger on Wednesday than most other indexes
slopechart KBE
The bank sector remains weak, with a consistent series of lower highs
slopechart SPY
The S&P 500 is quite close to lifetime highs
slopechart EEM
Emerging markets have completed a larger bullish base and could be in “launch” mode if they get past their horizontal (which is basically exactly where the price is now)
slopechart EFA
Outside of North America, equities are up against substantial resistance
slopechart EZU
The same holds true here, with the bearish and bullish patterns in a stand-off
slopechart FXI
China has a cup-with-handle pattern (bullish)
slopechart GLD
Gold looks prone to weakness, although I don’t think it has far to fall
slopechart GDX
Miners are just beneath their price gap and prone to slippage of about a dollar
slopechart GDXJ
Finally, junior miners are sporting the same price gap and are at risk of a modest sell-off.
Hopefully the start of earnings season next week will shake things up.